The premises of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, wore a rather unusual calm look when Saturday PUNCH visited a few days ago.
Apart from a few members of staff, security officials, and patients who were around, one could best describe the hospital as being on a ‘ghost’ mode – with no serious activities taking place.
For about three months, the medical staff at the hospital, including doctors, consultants, laboratory scientists, psychiatric nurses, and clinical psychologists, have been on strike in protest against the management of the hospital.
Their anger, among others issues, is that the management has not been taking their welfare into consideration. In fact, few weeks ago, one of the unions involved in the strike, the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives, appealed to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to invite the hospital’s medical director, Dr. Ramon Lawal, for probe over alleged financial recklessness.
“We have not enjoyed the administration of Dr. Lawal. He has completed his tenure and has also reached the retirement age of 60, yet he wants another one,” a psychiatric nurse, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Saturday PUNCH.
“We lodged complaints many times to him about what we lacked in this hospital, yet he took no actions. Our working condition is not something that is desirable, even for pigs. We don’t have the basic facilities in the hospital. Many times when I’m on duty, I use tissue paper instead of cotton wool when I want to inject patients.
“You also need to see how I sweat in the ward because there are no air-conditioners and no good fans. We use all sorts of things to fan ourselves due to the terrible condition. Our uniform is white, so it gets dirty and smells easily due to the heat. All we want is a good working condition.”
The nurse’s outburst was exactly what the NANNM Public Relations Officer, Mr. Adewale Adegbite, who spoke on behalf of the other unions, including the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria, expressed. He added that despite the huge allocation to the hospital, the staff’s welfare has never been taken into consideration.
He said, “Dr. Ramon Lawal, the immediate past Medical Director of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba, despite having completed his tenure as the medical director from August, 2011 to August 2015, has been granted another tenure. He attained the statutory retirement age of 60 years on January 3, 2015 and we want him to leave. We are tired of his administration.
“We want a replacement. But he told us that we are not the ones that could appoint or remove him as the medical director and that he had connection with the presidency, so he would rule us again. But we are tired of his leadership style. Our working condition can’t be desired for animals. There is no light in the hospital premises, vectors are everywhere, there are no stationery or consumables in the wards, prescription papers are no longer available, there is poor drainage system, no water supply.”
To crown it up, the unions alleged that the management had owed them promotion arrears for four years – from 2011 to 2015, and that since the organisation is owned by the Federal Government, the EFCC could as well invite Lawal to account for the millions of naira he had collected as allocation to the hospital since 2011.
To demonstrate their anger, the unions took to the streets of Lagos recently, causing a heavy traffic jam on the Lagos-Ikorodu Expressway and they said they would not relent until their demands were met.
Lawal, however, did not deny owing the workers’ promotion arrears, but said the delay in payment was not peculiar to the hospital and that contrary to the unions’ allegations that he had spent their money, he would never do such and suggested that the management was working towards improving the welfare of the workers.
He had told Saturday PUNCH, “The issue of promotion arrears is not peculiar to this hospital. I didn’t take and spend their money. The problem has been on for some time now and the unions know themselves. I am not happy they are complaining and I have explained the whole issue to them over and over again. I didn’t buy any house or car with their money as they are alleging.
“I have not been happy ever since they started their protest against me because I didn’t spend anybody’s money. The issue is already being discussed in Abuja and everyone will be happy in the end of it all.”
According to the proverbial saying that when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers, so it is in this particular situation. While the tussle between the unions and the management lasts, the patients at the hospital are the ones facing the peril.
While some relatives of the patients at the hospital were hoping that the staff would soon call off their strike and attend to their people, some others seriously lamented that they had no option than to relocate their people elsewhere.
The ‘elsewhere,’ according to some hospital staff, who spoke to our correspondent on the condition of anonymity, is either the home of the patients or traditional doctors’ homes, also known as herbalists.
“Some of them have locked their people indoor until the strike is over. This is not what we want, but we cannot pretend as if there are no problems,” a staff at the hospital said.
A relative of one of the patients at the hospital, who didn’t want her name in print and whose sister was admitted in the hospital few months ago, said the strike was already having a toll on the patient.
Folding her arms as she spoke with Saturday PUNCH in the premises of the hospital, with an expression of surrendering to fate on her face, she said, “Even when my sister was being attended to by the staff, she had not recovered, not to talk of now when she is being left at the mercy of the orderlies. She is not feeling well again.
“Before they embarked upon the strike, she was speaking sensibly, at least to some extent, but now she could barely understand what I tell her again. She is no longer behaving as one who is responding to treatment. Whatever the unions’ grievances are, I plead with them to resolve them quickly so that my sister can behave well again.”
If her plea is not heeded anytime soon, her sister’s condition might go worse, and at that point, she might consider taking her to a traditionalist, which some others had already done, according to finding by Saturday PUNCH.
“That would be the next step if they don’t call off the strike. I don’t like the idea, but family members are already suggesting that because we want her condition to improve,” she said. “We cannot watch her condition go worse by the day. Something needs to be done. But seriously, I dislike visiting traditionalists for any reason, so I don’t want my sister there.”
“We may have to take her for prayers,” a female relative of another patient at the hospital said.
Probably in her 40s, the beautiful woman said her sibling’s worsening condition had already subjected her to untold hardship in the past few weeks since the strike began.
“At times I have to get permission from work to come and check whether she’s faring well. When you have someone in a psychiatric hospital like this, your mind is not at rest. I want her to get better. I know this is not her bus stop; she has to leave here someday soon,” she said.
Though she was full of hope that her desire for her sibling would be granted soon, she could not deny her fear if staff at the hospital refuse to resume anytime soon.
“I am a Christian and I have been praying for my sister’s welfare ever since she got here some months ago, but that prayer has not been answered. There is no peace like knowing that one’s family members are all having sane minds and doing well in their careers. When one of them is affected, others too will pay for it. I hope with prayers, she can get better, but I want something to be done about the workers’ demands as soon as possible,” she added.
The NANNM PRO, Adegbite, doesn’t know when the union members would resume yet as their demands had yet to be met.
“The management has started embarking upon some ‘pseudo’ projects to make it seem like they are concerned about our welfare, but we will not be fooled. The MD has completed his tenure and we don’t want him again. He has attained his statutory retirement age and we want him to leave,” he told Saturday PUNCH.
If both the management and the unions at the FNH, Lagos – which is one out of the only eight regional psychiatric hospitals in the country – fail to address the issues soon, the worst case scenario could be the flooding of traditionalists’ homes and religious houses with some of the patients, a phenomenon which has already started taking place.
Adegbite said meetings were being held as regards the issues, but while the strike is yet to be over, relatives of patients might become further stranded.
“My daughter is becoming more violent day by day, all because she’s not being attended to adequately. When will this strike be over?” a mother of a patient, identified simply as Bunmi, asked.
A nurse at the hospital said “because we are not heartless, we still operate twice a week, but we are not fully working. We only go to inject and take care of the few remaining patients. We also hope our problems are solved soon.”
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