Members of the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, on Wednesday began a three-day warning strike after a patient’s relative assaulted a physician.

In a statement, the president and vice-president of ARD-UCH Ibadan, John Oladapo and Sunday Adegbite, respectively, said they were demanding a public apology in two widely read national dailies.

They also said there must be, in addition, an admission of wrongdoing by the assailants. The association’s members also demanded that the security architecture of the hospital be improved.

“On Sunday, one of our members was the target of a deliberate, premeditated, planned rage and furious assault by a patient’s relation. The doctor was seeing a known sickle cell patient in a painful crisis at the emergency department when the two men accosted him in the consulting room and started beating him up.

“The mother of the patient being seen who tried to intervene was also beaten up in this assault. In the doctor’s attempt to escape, the men chased him down and beat him up,” said the statement.

It added, “The security officers of the hospital intervened and rescued our member, but not before he sustained injuries to his body, as well as mental health and esteem.

“These assailants, friend to the father of a patient who died on Saturday, were awaiting the death certificate of the patient to be written while settling outstanding bills.

“Our members, who received a call from the emergency department concerning the Sickle Cell patient, explained this emergency call to the patient’s father, obtained his permission to save the living and attend to the death certificate later.”

The doctors’ association explained that the assailants were enraged and said the doctor was wasting their time and attacked him.

”This attack is the latest in a long history of attacks on medical doctors in UCH,” the association noted in its statement.

It added that the police had, however, arrested the assailants — Olaniyi Dauda and Hammed Surajudeen — and charged them to court.

“However, the ARD-UCH Ibadan has embarked on a strike today (Wednesday), and this will last for a maximum of 72 hours,” the statement noted.

(NAN)