BY Chioma Obinna

LAGOS — Patients who turned up at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, for medical services, Wednesday, experienced unusual delay because of the current skeletal services being rendered by the hospital.

The delay was caused by the ongoing three-day warning strike by the medical doctors under the auspices of the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), LUTH Branch.

The doctors began the three-day warning strike over alleged abnormal tax deductions from their salaries after meetings with the management of the hospital failed to yeild fruitful result.

Many of the patients who were obviously frustrated claimed to have arrived the hospital as early as 6.30 am, but were not attended to. Some of the few lucky patients who were eventually attended to spent the whole day at the hospital.

As at 3.30p.m, there were still a large crowd of patients at the Outpatients Department.

Although the striking doctors downed tools, other cadres of medical doctors, consultants and other senior doctors who were not part of the strike, were seen at their duty posts, offering skeletal services.

A patient who simply identified herself as Dupe complained that she came all the way from Sango-Otta, Ogun State only to find out that the doctors were on strike, adding: “ I arrived here as early as 7.30 a.m. Up till now (2.30p.m), I have not seen my doctor.”

LUTH mgt writes Lagos govt
Meanwhile, the management of LUTH has written to the Lagos State Government over the alleged outrageous tax regime currently being contested by the striking doctors.

Confirming this development, Chief Medical Director of LUTH, Prof. Akin Osinbogun, said the ongoing strike was purely a legal issue, which the management of the hospital has no power over.

Osibogun, who stated that the doctors were demanding tax reduction, said the hospital was complying with the Federal Government law, Act 20 of 2011 Personal Income Tax.

The CMD also appealed to the striking doctors to exercise patients and show some understanding as the management of LUTH was already addressing the issue within the ambient of the law.

He said: “We are already discussing with the Lagos State Government because tax is payable to the state where you reside. We are trying to see if they could give our staff a kind of relief. We are doing all these to calm our staff and we have done a formal letter to to the state government. We are expecting their response.”

”There was a new tax regime in which over 20 per cent was being deducted monthly from our salaries as tax, which is quite a lot of money,” said one doctor who spoke under the condition of anonymity.

His words: “We have met with the management severally, but they told us it was not a LUTH management decision and that it was a Federal Government tax law.”