REPORTS in a local tabloid in Ilorin, Kwara State, that many patients at the hospital had died since the commencement of the Joint Health Staff Union (JOHESU) strike were nothing but false, the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) has said.

   According to its spokesman, Oba Hassan-Kadir, the said report was lacking in knowledge of the “modus operandi” of a teaching hospital. He observed that the UITH, being one of its kind in both Kwara and Kogi states axis of the North-Central geo-political zone, would never reject any patient, “for whatever reason,” irrespective of health status.

   “Extremely bad cases are brought into this hospital every hour of the day. We are the very last port of call for any kind of patient. Whether or not there is a strike, it is practically impossible for such a hospital to do without any record of death,” he told The Guardian in Ilorin.

   “Therefore, for any newspaper to link any death in a teaching hospital system with an ongoing strike is not just only unfortunate but uninformed. Before jumping to any conclusion we need to ask, ‘what was the number of deaths before the strike and what is the number now?’”

   Already, the Chief Medical Director, Prof. Abdulwaheed Olatinwo, had canvassed a dialogue between members of JOHESU and their Federal Government employer.

   Olatinwo, while respecting JOHESU’s decision on the industrial action to press home their demands, said the hospital’s doctors never abandoned their duty posts. He added: “They are not taking over the duties of other health workers but trying to fill in the needed gaps for them. 

   “So it is not a paralysis of the system as being portrayed but a reduction in the number of healthcare providers.”