Professor Isaac Adewole: Health minister

Jethro Ibileke/Benin

The ongoing nationwide strike by Resident Doctors has claimed the life fire victim, Mrs. Margaret Edobor, at the accident and emergency ward of University of Benin Teaching Hospital.

The victim, a 65-year-old mother of seven, was said to have died on Tuesday at about 2:30 pm, from an infection she contacted following a fire accident.

‎She was said to have been admitted at the Hospital about a month ago, but had her treatment suspended, following the strike enbarked on by Resident Doctors on Monday.

Elder brother of the deceased, Mr. Sunday Ogbewe, who confirmed her death, explained ‎that his late sister was responding to treatment before she died.

“She had a fire accident and she was admitted here (UBTH). When the strike started, there was no doctor; so, she contracted an infection”‎, Ogbewe said, adding  that all efforts by the family of the victim to plead with the doctors to attend to her proved abortive as they insisted that they were on strike.

“It is very painful. I have been crying . She is gone. When it happened, I even called some doctors to attend to her. But they said no.

“They (doctors) should have human feeling. Not all doctors are pagans,” he said.

The strike action has grounded major services in the hospital, prompting‎ relatives of in-patients in the hospital to call on the doctors to call of the strike in the interest of human lives.

Meanwhile, the President of ARD, UBTH chapter, Dr. Owen Omorogbe, has said that the decision of the doctors ‎to embark on the strike, was a national directive in protest of the non-payment of some of their financial entitlements.

He said the strike was painful and appealed for understanding by the public.