PRESS RELEASE
The Association of Resident Doctors, Delta State University Teaching Hospital (ARD DELSUTH), strongly condemns the physical assault on our member, Dr. Austin Izah, a Resident Doctor in the Department of Ophthalmology, on Thursday, 30th July 2026, within Oghara.
More than a week after this disturbing incident, and despite engagements and formal correspondence with relevant authorities and stakeholders, the alleged assailants are yet to be brought to book.
For ARD DELSUTH, however, the greater concern is that this incident did not occur in isolation. Our members have, over time, experienced recurring incidents of harassment, intimidation and hostility within the host community. The cumulative effect is an increasing sense of insecurity among doctors and other healthcare workers who have left their different homes and communities to live in Oghara and render essential healthcare services to the people.
This cannot continue. A community privileged to host a tertiary teaching hospital must recognise that the institution cannot flourish in an atmosphere where those entrusted with saving lives increasingly feel unsafe, unwelcome or threatened.
DELSUTH cannot attain its enormous potential through infrastructure and equipment alone. The doctors, nurses and other professionals who constitute its human capital must also feel safe enough to live, work and raise their families within its environment.
It is therefore deeply troubling that at a time when DELSUTH desperately requires stability, manpower retention and renewed confidence to rebuild its services, recurring security concerns within its host environment threaten to further erode the morale of an already overstretched healthcare workforce.
Following an Emergency Congress held on Monday, 10th August 2026, members unanimously condemned the assault and expressed grave displeasure at the continued failure to apprehend and prosecute those allegedly responsible.
Congress consequently demands:
1. The arrest, proper investigation and prosecution of the alleged assailants in accordance with the law;
2. Appropriate compensation to Dr. Austin Izah and ARD DELSUTH for the mental, emotional and financial burden occasioned by the incident; and
3. An appropriate engagement involving Hospital Management, community leadership, security agencies and ARD DELSUTH to address the recurring security concerns affecting our members and establish measures to prevent further occurrences.
Congress has allowed until the expiration of Thursday, 13th August 2026 for satisfactory action on these demands, failing which members of ARD DELSUTH shall commence an indefinite strike from Friday, 14th August 2026.
We make this appeal beyond the boundaries of DELSUTH. We call upon the Delta State Government, security agencies, traditional and community leadership, the Nigerian Medical Association, civil society, well-meaning Deltans and Nigerians to intervene.
The leadership and people of Oghara must also confront the recurring incidents that have created an increasingly hostile perception of the environment among healthcare workers. Silence, indifference or failure to decisively address such conduct only allows that perception to deepen.
The future of DELSUTH is intertwined with the conduct of its host environment. A teaching hospital cannot thrive where its workforce does not feel safe.
We do not seek confrontation with our host community. We seek something much more fundamental: a community in which doctors and other healthcare workers can live and serve without harassment, intimidation or assault.
DELSUTH is too important to Delta State to be allowed to gradually slide into irrelevance because professionals required to sustain it increasingly feel unsafe or unwelcome in its host environment.
We therefore appeal to all well-meaning Nigerians and Deltans: DELSUTH needs your intervention.
The alleged perpetrators of this assault must be brought to justice. The recurring hostility experienced by healthcare workers must be confronted. Community leadership must take responsibility for creating an environment conducive to peaceful coexistence.
Enough is enough. Our members came to Oghara to save lives, not to live in fear.
