The University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital
(UMTH) was temporarily thrown into a state of
panic Thursday, as policemen who brought
corpses of their colleagues killed in Bama to the
morgue, went berserk; shooting a medical
doctor and beating up some medical staff in the
process.
They were also alleged to have destroyed
medical laboratory equipmenst in the hospital.
A staff of the hospital who spoke on condition of
anonymity narrated how the incident happened
thus: "You know when there is no place to keep
corpses, sometimes they are kept on the floor
pending when a space is created for
refrigerating, but when they came this morning,
the mobile policemen went on the rampage and
started shooting. They beat up a professor and
other medical staff and also shot a medical
doctor before some miltary men in the hospital
brought the situation under control."
According to him, the action of the policemen
has made some doctors in the hospital to
resolve never to attend to policemen who are
brought in almost on a daily basis for treatment.
"The doctors are saying that they deserve some
respect from the uniform men because some of
the security operatives, particularly the police,
have this disrespecting attitude towards them.
"Some of these doctors and professor they beat
up would have been IGPs if they are in uniforms,
but somebody who is far down the ladder treats
them as nobody," he explained.
Attempts to get the Chief Medical Director,
Professor Tahir Othman, to speak on the
incident did not yield results.
Meanwhile, despite the Borno State Police
Commissioner, Yuguda Abdullahi's visit to UMTH
about four hours after the incident, Resident
Medical Doctors of the hospital have embarked
on an indefinite strike following the shooting of
their colleague by policemen.
Chairman of Resident Doctors of the institution,
Dr. Mohammed Yahaya said; "Our union has
from today embarked on an indefinite strike
following the attack on one of of our colleagues
and others by policemen."
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