As Nigeria’s healthcare bleeds, striking doctors pledge to fight

Thousands of resident doctors are on strike over unpaid salaries, poor facilities and insufficient hazard allowances.

For months, *Emeka Nwaeze had to shuttle back and forth between his family home in Owerri, the capital of southern Nigeria’s Imo state, and the federal hospital, where his 54-year-old mother suffering from kidney failure was placed on dialysis.

Then one night, her condition worsened. First thing in the morning, Nwaeze rushed her to the hospital but was told that “doctors just started their strike, therefore, she can’t be admitted.”

“Before we could get to any hospital, she went into a coma,” Nwaeze, a beauty salon entrepreneur, told Al Jazeera.