A young resident doctor at Rivers State University Teaching Hospital (RSUTH), Oluwafemi Rotifa, has tragically collapsed and died after reportedly working a “72-hour shift.”
Rotifa was said to have slumped on Monday while resting in the call room and later passed away despite attempts to resuscitate him in the intensive care unit. Reports indicate that he had been on continuous call duty for three days.
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Confirming the incident to TheCable, Tope Osundara, president of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), condemned the heavy workload faced by doctors in Nigerian hospitals.
“The burnout and workload among medical doctors is becoming very worrisome,” Osundara said. “We have cried out and complained repeatedly. What happened is that the resident doctor was on call in the emergency room. Unfortunately, the workload was strenuous, and they had to regularly go over 24-hour shifts. He had reviewed a patient, and afterwards, he went to the call room to rest. They came to call him, and it was there that they saw him sprawled on the floor. He must have fallen from the bed.”
Osundara further revealed that some doctors endure an entire month on call. “Ideally, no one should be on call for even 24 hours. We later discovered he was treating malaria, but adults in Nigeria don’t die of malaria. Malaria is endemic in Nigeria. He had malaria but still had to go and treat a patient,” he said. “The overuse of manpower strained his health and led to this painful death. His death was due to overworking.”
He urged the government to tackle staff shortages, improve welfare packages, and enforce humane work schedules for doctors to prevent such tragedies in the future.
Tinubu: Nigeria no longer borrowing from local banks as revenue target surpassed
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has declared that the Federal Government is no longer borrowing from domestic banks, citing a major revenue breakthrough driven by non-oil sectors.
The announcement was made during a meeting with members of the Buhari Organisation, led by former Nasarawa State Governor, Senator Tanko Al-Makura, at the Presidential Villa.
