It is disgraceful that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) health authorities have allowed hospitals in Nigeria’s capital to be crippled before addressing doctors’ long-standing grievances.
Development Diaries reports that the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), FCT chapter, commenced an indefinite strike on Monday, grounding services in district hospitals and primary healthcare centres.
According to a communique, the doctors decided to embark on a strike following the failure of the FCT management to address their legitimate demands, even after a one-week warning strike.
The strike exposes once again the deep cracks in Nigeria’s health system.
At the centre of the crisis are unpaid salaries, poor welfare conditions, delayed residency training funds, and manpower shortages that stretch doctors beyond their limits.
These are not new complaints, doctors have raised them repeatedly, yet the government has responded with silence or piecemeal solutions that do little to resolve systemic failures.
The result is a trouble pattern where doctors are forced to withdraw services to be heard, leaving patients stranded and vulnerable.
The human cost of this strike is already visible. Patients are being turned away because doctors are absent from consulting rooms and theatres.
While consultants and nurses continue to provide skeletal services, they are overwhelmed, and essential treatments are being delayed or denied altogether.
For ordinary citizens who rely on public hospitals, this is a life-threatening situation. No patient should be forced to choose between waiting indefinitely for care or risking their lives at the mercy of untreated illnesses.
Equally troubling is the fact that no new doctors have been recruited into FCT hospitals since 2011, despite a rising population and increasing health needs, according to a report by Daily Trust.
This neglect has created a dangerous manpower gap, pushing existing staff to exhaustion and undermining the quality of healthcare delivery.
The non-payment of salaries and allowances owed to doctors, coupled with deductions that cannot be explained, amounts to nothing short of institutional injustice.
It is shameful that in a country where billions are allocated to less critical ventures, health workers have to go on strike before their legitimate entitlements are considered.
Development Diaries calls on the FCT administration, its permanent Secretary, Health Services and Environmental Secretariat (HSES), Babagana Adamand, to step in and take concrete actions.
It is unacceptable that citizens are left to die quietly while leaders play politics with healthcare.
Photo source: Commonwealth Secretariat
