… Say Strike Continues Until Colleague’s Safe Release
By Patrick Ochei
Medical doctors under the aegis of National Association of Government General Medical and Dental Practitioners (NAGGMDP), Delta State Chapter has called for the unconditional release of their colleague, Dr. Wisdom Iboyitete, a Principal Medical Officer who was kidnapped at the premises of the General Hospital Ojobo in Burutu LGA of Delta State, by gunmen who pretended to be patients on 1st June, 2020.
Briefing the press in Asaba, the Chairman of the group which is an affiliate of NMA, Dr. Ebikagboro Olayinka said the strike action earlier declared by the doctors would continue until there was evidence of Dr. Iboyitete’s safe release from the kidnappers’ den.
Aside the above most important demand, the group also made five other demands bordering on calls to the State Government: to provide adequate security within the hospital, to make employment and deployment of security personnel a necessity in all government hospitals, to erect perimeter fencing in hospitals not fenced, to provide electricity in all hospitals and finally, it called on host communities of these General and Central Hospitals not to see staff as strangers and targets for kidnapping but as equal stakeholders for development.
Ebikagboro who noted the efforts of security agencies to rescue their colleague, urged that the tempo be increased and extra care taken to free him unscathed and unharmed.
She affirmed that in the past four years, five medical doctors in the State had been kidnapped and released after spending torturous days with their abductors.
Ebikagboro further expressed the fear that doctors had continued to offer essential medical services to Deltans at the grassroots in perpetual fear of kidnappers, armed robbers and other hoodlums within the host communities where they work.
She however posited, that no doctor could give his best in an environment where he is not only unsecured but perpetually threatened, thereby calling on Government, Security Agencies and other stakeholders to come to their aides in such regards.