UCH threatens doctors over planned night-duty boycott

On Wednesday, the University College Hospital's administration in Ibadan, Oyo State, issued a warning to all of its employees, including doctors, about skipping night shifts. They emphasised that "whoever fails to report at his or her duty posts does that at his or her own risk."

Under the direction of the Joint Action Committee, hospital staff informed The PUNCH on Tuesday that they would be pausing their nighttime work after the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company shut off the hospital's power due to purportedly unpaid N495 million in electricity bills.

According to JAC Chairman Oladayo Olabampe, the workers have agreed to reduce their workload until the electricity is restored, and they will now only work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

A seven-day strike was also threatened by the employee if the hospital was not linked by Tuesday, April 9.

However, the hospital's public relations officer, Funmi Adetuyibi, and the chairman of the JAC disagreed in two separate conversations with our correspondent in Ibadan on Wednesday regarding the anticipated reduction in operations.

Although the JAC Chairman declared that the 8 am to 4 pm work hours would not be reinstated, a UCH representative emphasised that the plan would not function.

The chairman of the JAC declared, "We are not going back. We started yesterday, Tuesday." A hospital power outage led the staff to make this decision. Thus, as a result of this development, nobody would be available to care for patients at UCH in the evening.

"We would have even begun then, but all we were thinking about was the health of the patients who might become a victim of this."

The light hasn't come back on yet. Therefore, we are doing less things. Every day, we are expected to work from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. Since yesterday, we have acted on our previous promise to reduce activity if the light is not restored by today, Tuesday. That is the most recent. We're currently in the third week.

However, the PRO Adetuyibi responded, saying, "The hospital work is still functioning 24 hours a day. The workers on the morning shift have finished their job and left, the afternoon workers are already working, and the night shift workers will shortly return to finish their own work. Additionally, those who are on call are working.

"In a letter to the union, management stated that they are opposed to any reduction in working hours. All individuals ought to confront their tasks. Everyone has to be reporting to work. In addition to treating patients from outside the hospital, doctors are also caring for patients in different hospital wards. They are taking care of them at midnight as well as in the morning, midday, and night. Therefore, nothing like down-scaling of working hours.
"Those who neglect to report to their duty posts do so at their own risk," the management has also informed the department heads.