Normal services activities was disrupted for some hours yesterday at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, as doctors and security officers engaged each other in word battle over possession of an office space within the hospital’s premises.
The said office according to reports served as the secretariat of the LUTH branch of the Association of Resident Doctors.
Association of Resident Doctors (LUTH-ARD), had earlier been taken over by the hospital management two days ago. But the move was resisted by the aggrieved doctors
The reports further disclosed that some Doctors and Security officers sustained injuries as the situation was getting out hand before the intervention of Policemen who later brought the situation under control.
Inside Sources gathered from some of the doctors who claimed that the management of LUTH had sent security personnel to take over their secretariat around 2 am (Wednesday), but the Chief Medical Director of the Hospital, Prof Chris Bode, said the hospital had taken over the space as it constituting security threat.
Prof Bode explained in a telephone chat that the hospital had issued and a quit notice had been served to the doctors for more than six months ago and was hoping to use the space as hospital wards.
Prof Bode on phone said “We started receiving reports about the place being a security threat to the whole hospital. We had to tell them to move out of the place. We served them notice in November, the notice lapsed about a week ago and 2 days ago the hospital took possession of the place. Before then there had been several reports of a small caucus threatening the lives of staff, yesterday they were brazenly threatening the Chairman Medical Advisory Committee, CMAC, so no responsible management takes that kind of thing lightly. And today they carried out their threat. A security man was stabbed, another brutalized both are receiving attention right now. When doctors resort to this kind of behavior it becomes worrisome”
Meanwhile the Chairman association of Resident Doctors LUTH Dr. Adebayo Sekunmade that though the management had served them two eviction notices to quit the secretariat, but they had pleaded with the authorities to give them time to get an alternative venue.
