Doctors at UUTH begin indefinite strike after EFCC raid

Medical doctors and health workers at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH) have announced an indefinite strike following a raid by Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) operatives on Tuesday.

According to reports, EFCC agents arrived at the hospital in the afternoon and attempted to detain a staff member, prompting resistance from other employees.

Eyewitnesses said the agents called for reinforcements; additional personnel arrived and allegedly discharged firearms into the air to disperse the gathering staff.

Sources added that the EFCC agents eventually removed the deputy chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee, Prof. Effiong Ekpe, along with three other hospital staff members.

They also claimed that several people were injured and that phones were broken when some staff tried to record the incident.

In response, Dr. Aniekan Peters, chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in Akwa Ibom State, instructed doctors across the state to cease services immediately, while leaders of the Joint Health Sector Unions announced a total shutdown of the hospital in protest.

Confirming the events, Dr. Gabriel Eyo, public relations officer of the NMA, described the EFCC’s actions as an assault on the hospital and its workers.

Eyo said it was unacceptable for a professor of cardiothoracic surgery—the only one in the state—to be treated in such a manner, adding that the strike was declared to protest what the association termed an injustice.

“In the early hours of this morning, masked men wearing EFCC jackets stormed into the hospital premises, walked into the Deputy Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee’s (CMAC) office, Prof. Effiong Ekpe, and they beat him to a pulp.

“They dragged him like a common criminal. When members of staff, students and other health workers walked into the hospital tried to resist them, and they shot sporadically into the air at the hospital premises and dispersed the crowd with tear gas.

“Even when they reached the hospital gates, when the hospital security saw what was happening, they locked the gates. The members of the EFCC knocked down the gates.

“Prof. Ekpe is the professor of cardiothoracic surgery, the only one we have in Akwa Ibom State. Anyway, we don’t know what he has done, but we don’t really care at this point. Whatever he did, there’s a due process for this kind of thing. Even criminals are not treated this way. The only thing that should have been done would have been to send an invite, which was not done.

“I heard that he was about to operate on a patient, and then you whisk him away in such manner? Very demoralizing, very traumatic. That man, I heard, was even bleeding from his head. That man may have been exposed to severe traumatic brain injury. Imagine the psychosocial trauma that he may never recover from.

“The NMA just had a meeting of its members, so we’ve begun the indefinite strike. The resolutions will be made public very soon.

“A lot of injured people that were asthmatic. I think our NMHL man is asthmatic so he is having reactions to ETH gas because people that we believe will struggle and we can’t actually quantify the figure as of this point in time,” he stated.

Reacting to the incident, Baba Azare, commissioner of police for the Akwa Ibom State Command, said he ordered police officers to accompany EFCC officials in arresting a hospital staff member on the instruction of a judge in an ongoing court case.

Azare said that before police entered the hospital, he informed the chief medical director, Prof. Emem Bassey, to direct his staff to grant the officers access.

“The EFCC went for an arrest in the hospital this morning, and the CMD called me to verify if my men were among those in the hospital.

“I said, ok, let me send my policemen to the place. So I now sent a CSP to go and verify. And the CSP went there. He verified them to be EFCC personnel. He called to let me know that it is EFCC personnel that are in the hospital.

“I called the head of EFCC who confirmed to me that they were actually the ones that went to pick that person. On the instruction of the court, that right now they are in court and they are having a court case and the judge stood down the case that they should bring that person. That is why they went to bring him.

“I called the CMD and advised him to open the gate for them to carry that man because it is a legitimate duty.

“So we didn’t go to invade anywhere. We went there on the invitation of the CMD to check, to verify those who came to do the arrest, whether they are legitimate or not. And we confirmed to him they are legitimate and he should allow them move,” he stated.