Ward attendants at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Lokoja, on Thursday, protested over the death of their colleague Salamatu Aliu of the post-natal ward, appealing to the Federal Ministry of Health to beam its searchlight on the hospital.
Protesters clutching leaves yelled solidarity songs like “All lives matter and are equal.” “Stop treating us unfairly as if we aren’t human,” they said as they marched through the hospital.
One of them who spoke anonymously said Salamatu was rushed to the hospital for medical attention on Sunday evening after her seven-day night shift but doctors/nurses referred her to a specialist hospital in Lokoja for lack of electricity.
According to the attendant, Salamatu died on getting to the hospital before medical care could be administered to her.
The protesters pointed accusing fingers at the nonchalant attitude of the doctors and nurses of Federal Teaching Hospital, Lokoja.
They claimed that the action was unbecoming of the Accident and Emergency Ward.
It, however, took pacification to make the protesters go back to work with the promise that the issue would be thoroughly investigated.
The chief medical director of the hospital has yet to comment on the matter as he was not available.
But the hospital’s legal adviser Enny Onoja Esq said the issue just got to his notice and is being addressed to ascertain what transpired and the needed action.
The incident is coming months after a similar one happened in the hospital. It led to the beating of some medical personnel by relatives of a patient who died due to alleged negligence on the side of the doctors.