Alleged Harassment: OAUTHC Nurses Fault Doctors' Strike, Prescribe Legal Approach

National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, Obafemi Awolowo Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife branch, on Wednesday, faulted the strike action embarked upon by members of the Association of Resident Doctors in the hospital over an alleged harrasment of one of its members by a nurse.

IFECITYBLOG had reported that residents doctors at the hospital on Tuesday embarked on a two-day warning strike, in protest of an alleged assault against a house master by a matron at the hospital for the former's refusal to discard waste generated after treating a patient.

The doctors association had in a statement while announcing the strike alleged an increasing rate of assault by nurses against its members in the hospital.

Reacting to the allegation, the NANNM, in a statement on Wednesday, signed by the chairman and secretary of the association, Comrade O. Ajayi and O. Oyeniyi, respectively, supported the action of the nurse.

They argued that the nurse had done nothing wrong for asking that the waste generated be discarded by one of the doctors that generated it.

The Association also added that its lawyer had written to the OAUTHC management, demanding for the protection of personal and professional rights of the nurse and all nurses at large in the hospital.

The statement reads in part, “If the resident doctors are confident enough that their member is harassed illegally, why not honourably seek legal redress and unbiased judgment from the court of law, instead of threatening to further put innocent lives at risk. Will the loss of lives of Nigerians be a legitimate remedy for enforcing global best practices of waste management?

“As a legally compliant association, the Lawyer of NANNM has written to the OAUTHC management to protect the personal and professional rights of the nurse and all nurses at large in the OAUTHC and the world, at large.

“The principle of duty of care dictates that “whoever generates waste must segregate and dispose it.” The refusal of the nurse to put the life of other healthcare workers and environmental staff at risk that the waste generated by the resident doctors must be appropriately segregated and discarded cannot be refuted, hence the need to call for action by the nurse.”