The peace at the University College Hospital (UCH) was, on Monday evening, truncated when a nurse at the hospital’s accident and emergency unit was said to have been assaulted by a Deputy Director at the DSS, over a misunderstanding on patients brought in dead.
The nurse was said to have been slapped and her head knocked on the wall by the security operative, leading to the hospitals’ branch of the Nigerian Nurses and Midwives Association (NNANM) going on a 48-hour warning strike to demand an apology.
The 48-hours strike which entered its second day on Wednesday, however, left some of the services at the hospital at its lowest ebb.
Although, some old patients of the hospital at its outpatient clinics were seen waiting to be attended to by other health workers in the hospital, patients newly coming in or that requires to be booked newly for specialist care were turned back.
UCH’s Chief Medical Director, Professor Temitope Alonge, reacting to the incidence, which he described as unfortunate, assured that the incidence had been resolved and that senior nurses had not joined the strike.
He said: “We expect that they will have a congress today (Wednesday) and then call off this unfortunate 48-hours strike. It is totally unfortunate and apologies have been rendered to the nurses’ association.”
Alonge said the hospital’s policy on patients brought in dead was what triggered off the misunderstanding, and not because the law enforcement agent and nurses wanted to be at each other’s throat.
According to him, “Often times, people do not understand that such is a coroner’s case and that such should be handled by the Oyo State government.”
Alonge said the hospital’s policy required that the cause of death of such patients be ascertained to rule out either homicide or suicide, adding that it was a coroner’s case that ought to be handled by the Oyo State government.
“What we agreed upon is that when such corpses come, we inform Oyo State government and get permission before we do autopsies on them. This policy, unfortunately does not exclude anybody, if a patient is brought in dead to the hospital.”
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