The Management of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Oyo State, has sought Police intervention over alleged assault of a resident doctor by a laboratory scientist, both staff of Hematology Department.
The alleged case of assault occurred on March 18 and had been investigated by management since the case was reported.
Director of Administration of UCH, Mr Olagoke Olaosun, said that the case had been investigated and the management decided to call in the Police.
Olaosun said the Police was invited since it had been established that the case was a suspected assault.
Meanwhile, the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), UCH, Ibadan, said it was still awaiting the outcome of the administrative steps taken by the management.
In a statement in Ibadan, the association said it expected the management to follow due process in investigating the matter.
The statement was jointly signed by Dr Luqman Ogunjimi and Dr Segun Olaopa, the association’s President and General Secretary respectively.
The association said that the due process spelt out in the Civil Service Rules, explained investigation of the matter by a special committee and the guilty party would be sanctioned accordingly.
“We believe there are provisions for this kind of incident in the Public and Civil Service Rules (Chapter 3, Sections 3 and 4, Public Service Rules 2008 Edition).
“We expect management to ensure its full and total enforcement which should be made public to the aggrieved parties.
“In 2011, a doctor was assaulted in the same laboratory and after all investigative activities were purported to have been carried out, the matter was swept under the carpet.
“Such misconduct had repeated itself in the same hospital and we patiently await the outcome of management’s investigation of this matter, hoping justice will be served.
“Justice will be seen to have been served when provisions of the law is enforced, fully implemented and such misconduct is forestalled in future,’’ the statement said.
An attempt to get the Chief Medical Director, Prof. Temitope Alonge, to give further explanation on why the Police was called in, proved abortive, as he was said to be attending to urgent management matters.
The Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee, Dr Adefemi Afolabi, said that the Chief Medical Director called the Police to arrest the laboratory scientist.
Afolabi said this was after the result of investigation by the management was brought to his table.
“Since the matter is now being investigated by the Police, I therefore, cannot make further comment on it, ” he said
An attempt to get the President of Laboratory Scientists Association of UCH, Mr Biodun Ogunniyi, to comment on the matter proved abortive, as his phone was switched off.
At the Hematology Department, a staff who preferred to be anonymous said that the laboratory scientist was arrested by the Police on Tuesday.
However, the Police in Yemetu, under whose jurisdiction the offence falls, neither confirmed nor refuted the claims of arrest of a UCH staff.
Stakeholders at the UCH were awaiting the outcome of the Police intervention.
On Friday, March 18, a laboratory scientist allegedly assaulted a resident doctor, who tried to collect a slide of a cancer patient from her for review.
The Association of Resident Doctors immediately decried the action and called for action by the management against the laboratory scientist.
