Nurses and midwives at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), on Tuesday, shut the entrance into the medical facility in protest over the arrest of three of their colleagues by the state police command.
The blockade left staff, patients, and visitors trying to gain access into and out of the teaching hospital stranded, while patients waited helplessly in their different wards without anyone attending to them.
The aggrieved nurses and midwives, thereafter, took their protest to the state police command in Calabar, carrying placards with the inscriptions, “Nurses save lives, stop the harassment” and demanding the release of their colleagues who had been in police custody for over 24 hours.
A source said the management of the hospital tried unsuccessfully to secure the release of the detained nurses from police custody, to avert the protest by the nurses and midwives.
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It was learnt that operatives of the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) had stormed the UCTH and took away the three nurses for alleged complicity in the death of an accident victim.
Our reporter gathered that a Good Samaritan had brought an accident victim to the hospital for treatment, but the victim died in the course of treatment.
“Later, his (accident victim) relative came to claim his things and said the SIM card in his phone was missing. However, the nurses told them that what the Good Samaritan brought is what they are giving to him.
“This infuriated the relative, who then reported to the police, who arrived and arrested the three nurses on duty,” the source on condition of anonymity narrated.
