Why Nigerian Doctors Strike: A Doctor’s Account of Broken Hospital Systems

I strike because doctors and patients deserve better. Government hospitals need basic equipment, reliable oxygen, electricity and policies that protect lives. Too often, doctors know what to do but do not have the tools to do it. As an internationally trained doctor who returned to Nigeria to practise, I faced difficult licensing hurdles before working in a government hospital. In the emergency unit, I sometimes had only my hands, a thermometer and a blood-pressure monitor borrowed from another ward. I was also on call up to five days a week. I have tried to save unconscious patients with manual resuscitation, only to later learn that they died because oxygen equipment failed. I have searched wards at night for oxygen for critically ill patients. We have attended to patients with phone torchlights during power cuts. When we refer patients elsewhere, it is often because keeping them in a facility without the needed resources may put them in greater danger. Doctors do not strike because we do not care. We strike because a functioning healthcare system is essential for every Nigerian.

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