Resident doctors seek employment waiver for FTH Lokoja

Resident doctors at Federal Teaching Hospital Lokoja (FTHL) have appealed to the Minister of Health, Prof. Ali Pate, to give a waiver to the hospital management to employ permanent doctors due to the lingering casualisation of doctors.

The doctors expressed great displeasure over the continued alleged victimisation of resident doctors by the management of the hospital led by its Chief Medical Director (CMD), Dr Olatunde Alabi.

Doctors from different departments at the hospital, who spoke to our reporter on condition of anonymity because of fear of victimisation, lamented that there had been no permanent employment of resident doctors at FTHLokoja since 2012.

They noted that the FTHL CMD has continually insisted that the Health Minister has refused to give the hospital a waiver to migrate their staff on locum into the IPPIS platform, stressing that the process of getting a waiver is cumbersome.

The doctors emphasised that the CMD on many occasions reiterated that the strict process of employing new staff put in place by the Federal Government was hindering the replacement of those who have left the hospital. 

The doctors decried the gross shortage of manpower and its adverse effects on the patients at the hospital, and appealed for urgent intervention by President Bola Tinubu.

According to them, issues affecting doctors at FTH Lokoja include gross shortage of resident doctors across various departments, casualization, excess workloads, victimizations, nonpayment of salaries arrears, and epileptic power water supply.

Others are the suspension of the residency training program, denial of medical officers with primary in-house training, poor accommodations, poor call meal supplies, and non-availability of essential drugs in the hospital especially A/E pharmacy, among others.

They accused FTHLOkoja management of operating the hospital on casualisation where resident doctors are placed on “Locum”, and renew their employment every two months, without pension and other benefits.

The doctors stressed that the locum being practiced by FTHLokoja management for over 12 years, had led to a mass exodus of doctors from the hospital which they described as an “Internal brain drain”.

They emphasised that the mass exodus of doctors has rendered the hospital to be grossly short-staffed with negative attendant effects on patients, resulting in excess workloads, negligence, and avoidable loss of lives at the federal teaching hospital from time to time.

The doctors disclosed that between 2020 and 2024, over 96 doctors left the hospital to seek greener pastures elsewhere due to the locum employment that the FTH Lokoja has adopted.