LAUTECH doctors protest over salary crisis

Resident doctors at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital, Ogbomoso on Friday staged a protest against the decision of the Oyo State Government to pay half salaries to the doctors since January 2016.

Some of the placards displayed by the doctors at the school gate read, ‘Health service care must be accessible, affordable financially and acceptable’, Save Residency Training’, ‘IGR drive should not be at the expense of the citizens’, ‘No to half salary’, and ‘Do not starve our specialists any longer’.

According to the protesters, the institution is the only state-owned medical institution being paid half salary.

Addressing journalists during the protest, President, Association of Resident Doctors, LAUTECH, Dr. Sebastine Oiwoh, said the five-year-old institution was built on a tripod of training, verifiable research and delivery of qualitative, acceptable and accessible health care service.

He said the hospital had had to grapple with perennial issues of epileptic payment of salary, incomplete structures and lack of or failure to deliver the planned equipment.

He said, “The implication of this is inconsiderate hike in cost of health service delivery which will make health care unaffordable, not accessible and therefore unacceptable to the citizens.”