A 200 level female student of the University of Calabar (UNICAL) has been reported dead following the strike action embarked upon by Doctors.

On Saturday, The student, Miss Rebecca Chukwueke gave up the ghost, after nurses and doctors refused to attend to her at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, UCTH

Miss Chukwueke happens to be the fourth student to die in the University of Calabar and Cross River University of Technology, CRUTECH in Cross River State in recent times.

Miss Chukwueke was not attended to at the UCTH due to the fact that the Doctors and other health personnel were on strike but was rushed to the Nigerian Navy Reference Hospital at Murtala Mohammed High Way, Calabar, where she gave up her ghost following an unknown ailment.

A colleague of the deceased whose name wasn’t mentioned, said “She was unconscious on Saturday morning around 12:27 am when she was rushed to the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH); however, the nurses and doctors refused to examine her with an excuse that they are on strike.

Mara Mara the deceased sister said “This is nonsense….those doctors and nurses are inhumane and will pay for her (Miss Chukwueke) life.

“The same way they chose their work’s principles in disregard to a person’s life, that’s the way it’d be for them except they ask GOD for forgiveness.”

“If they knew they were on strike, they wouldn’t have opened that day and my sister would have lived – because they would have first of all rushed her to other hospitals (s) that were opened and ready to attend to her for the day.

“I thought the hospital staff were learned and should know how to do things…please, next time when they are on strike, they should gently close up and don’t forget to announce that they are on strike.

“I wonder why the hospital will be on strike while the school is not; when the most important infrastructure needed at the school is being cut off, what do we expect?” Mara fumed.

The Association of Resident Doctors, ARD-UCTH chapter had embarked on industrial action on the 18th of March, 2019. The ARD-UCTH strike which has entered its 20th day was as a result of non-payment of salary arrears from 2014-2016.