Lagos Hospital Discharge Psychiatric Patients Due to Strike

As the strike declared by health workers under the aegis of the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) bites harder, the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, have hurriedly discharged patients admitted in the hospitals.

This is because majority of the nurses that should care for them have joined the industrial action.

The development has compelled the Federal Government to appeal to JOHESU to call off the strike.

Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, said that government was working assiduously towards addressing the demands of the health workers.

Investigations by New Telegraph revealed that about 90 per cent of patients on admission at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, have so far been discharged.

Also in LUTH, a reliable source said majority of the over 300 patients admitted in the teaching hospital have been discharged, leaving only 120 patients in the wards, due to non-availability of nurses, majority of who are also on strike.

A source at the hospital said that after discharging the patients, LUTH management had to merge some wards, bringing the remaining patients together, as a strategy to manage the situation.

She said: “As at Friday, the management of LUTH had discharged up to 40 patients on admission in the hospital.

“By yesterday, more patients had been asked to go, leaving 120 patients only in the wards to enable the few nurses at the cadre of management staff to care for them.”

According to the source, “to make it possible for the top nurses to cope with the huge workload, patients from different wards were merged into the same ward.”

Similarly, going by the strike, which was declared on Wednesday, September 20, most patients who had arrived both LUTH and the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital to seek care on Monday, did not meet their expectations in terms of service provisioning.

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