No fewer than 46 medical doctors have resigned from the Anambra State-owned Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, Awka, over poor condition of service.

They were made up of 10 consultants and 36 resident doctors.

The university’s chairman of the Medical and Dental Consultants of Nigeria, Dr Chukwudi Okani, stated this on Wednesday in Awka, the Anambra State capital.

He said the doctors were “frustrated out of the system because of poor management in the last one year and many more are seriously searching for better places to go.”

He said COOUTH had the worst condition of service amongst teaching hospitals in the country.

He urged the governor, Willie Obiano, to intervene to save the institution from imminent collapse.

Okani said the ongoing indefinite strike by his members in the institution would continue until government met their demands.

He said, “There must be better conditions of service in COOUTH so that doctors would not be leaving in droves.

“Both the state government and the management of the teaching hospital are not serious in addressing the multiple problems facing the teaching hospital.

“Let us be reminded that our benchmark for return to work is at least payment of 70 per cent of the revised CONMESS as agreed at the committee level.

“This is the only teaching hospital in Anambra State and the state government cannot effectively put it in order, pay good wages to the workers to retain the good brains in the hospital who are leaving for other institutions”

He said most departments in the teaching hospital had no consultants.

He denied reports in some quarters that the state government had met their demands, adding that government was just “playing to the gallery.”

Reacting, the Anambra State Commissioner for Health, Dr Vincent Okpala, while stating that some medical professionals must have left the institution for greener pastures, said the state government was working to better the hospital.

He said, “The state government has come up with a good package that will make the doctors to stay and also attract better brains to the college.

“Government has supplied modern equipment to the college and very soon, those who left will like to come back.”

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