Doctors Shut Down Services After Shocking Hospital Incident Sparks Crisis

(Doctors at the Federal Medical Centre. Photo by TVC News)

Physicians at the Federal Medical Center in Owo, Ondo State, have started a 72-hour warning strike in response to a patient’s relative allegedly assaulting one of their coworkers on hospital property.

Services at FMC Owo and its Akure Annex were hampered by the industrial action, which started on Sunday.

The physicians maintain that the strike will go on until the perpetrators are captured and sufficient security measures are implemented.

This was stated in a statement released following an emergency general meeting of the Association of Resident Doctors, FMC Owo branch, which took place on Saturday, May 30, 2026. 

Our correspondent received the communiqué on Monday, which was signed by Dr. Adeola Oluwadamilola, the association’s president, and Dr. Dare Aderemi, its secretary-general.

The group said that a patient and the patient’s wife had repeatedly slapped and physically abused the assaulted physician, pointing out that attacks on physicians had become commonplace.

The most recent incident was the institution’s second of its sort this year, it continued.

The claimed assault, according to the doctors, is just one more instance of the growing violence that healthcare professionals encounter while performing their jobs.

The statement stated: “On May 30, 2026, the Association of Resident Doctors, Federal Medical Center Owo, called an Emergency General Meeting due to an attack on a doctor who was on call at the hospital’s Akure Annex.”

“A male patient’s wife attacked the doctor. She and the patient repeatedly hit him and mistreated him. Since this is the second assault on a doctor this year, it has become a “recurring decimal.”

In accordance with the NARD procedure, the congress announces a 72-hour total strike that starts at 8:00 am on May 31, 2026. Only until the hospital and its surrounding areas have sufficient armed security will the strike be evaluated.

The doctors stated that the strike would only be revisited if the accused perpetrators were apprehended, forced to publicly apologize in a reputable national daily, and forced to compensate the physician who had been assaulted.