By Kolade Larewaju
ABEOKUTA—THE Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria, MDCAN, Ogun State Branch, has raised an alarm over the situation of things at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital OOUTH, saying that “the hospital is on the verge of collapse.”

Chairman of the Association, Dr. Olusoji Jagun, in a statement  yesterday painted a gory picture of the situation at the teaching hospital and called for the quick intervention of prominent people to get the government to take action.

He said: “We have watched,  how events in the hospital have degenerated over the years and the lack luster performance of the government in improving situations. The hospital has become a shadow of itself in terms of service provision and manpower development and this has led to the flight of competent and enterprising personnel in the hospital.

“Some months ago, the hospital could boast of urologist, plastic surgeons, dermatologist, psychiatrist and respiratologist but all these have become a thing of the past. Resident Doctors are leaving in droves leaving vacuums in the training and house officers are not willing to come to the hospital because of low pay and inadequate exposure. We have been forced to believe that the hospital is at the precipice of destruction via an apoptotic mechanism and the move of the association is like the final attempt to rescue the stray dog.”

“A visit to the hospital will show you abandoned projects; buildings completed but not used at all or not used for the desired purpose; regular power outages and Doctors are almost removing their clothes during consultation because of stuffiness; seeing patients under next to impossible conditions with medical students also breathing on each other in an overcrowded stuffy room; non functioning modular theatre and lack of modern surgical equipments, office procedures are next to impossible; you cannot do an X-ray or ultrasound in the night , you have to wait till the following morning; no portable ultrasound scan for bedside use; the emergency room has no splints  to manage fracture cases they use cartons of  drugs from the pharmacy to improvise; salaries and allowances are not been paid as scheduled and many more things that make us fill the nomenclature of this hospital should be changed to a cottage hospital because this is not the best that can be offered to Ogun state people.

The teaching hospital is not competitive and not attractive in spite of the assets in form of personnel that is available

“The association wrote a memo to the management over non implementation of the CONMESS about 3 weeks ago and no feedback was obtained from the management. We strongly believe that if an association of the most senior members of staff has issues with the management, courtesy demands that response should be given.

We have lost most of members to other institutions in the country and outside the country because of this same insensitivity by the government.

“At the Annual General meeting of the association on Wednesday 3rd November, it was resolved that at the expiration of the ultimatum, the members of the association will embark on a warning strike to press home their demands and if there is no appropriate response from the management, we will embark on an indefinite strike.

“We wish to note that in the period of the strike, no consultant clinic will hold and no surgical operations will be performed; clinical training of medical and postgraduate students will be suspended; no postgraduate student will be signed for any examination and management meetings will be boycotted.

“We have resolved to rescue this sinking ship and we will like to use this opportunity to appeal to well meaning Nigerians and citizens of Ogun state in particular to prevail on the management, the board and the state government to save this legacy named after one of the greatest visionary leaders of Ogun state so that the labour of our past leaders shall not be in vain”.