The ongoing faceoff between the Federal Government and the National Association of Resident Doctors [NARD] in the country continues as a meeting to resolve the issues raised by the doctors ended in a deadlock on Tuesday night.

Following this the FG has directed all medical doctors in Nigeria to open a register by 7am, taking note of doctors who come to work and those who failed to come to work.

WuzupNigeria reports that the directive has been seen as a subtle threat to fire resident doctors who fail to resume duties immediately.

After the meeting, the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, stated that the Federal Ministry of Health would issue a directive to all Medical Directors in the country to open a register by 7 am and record those who have come to work and those who failed to come to work.

He frowned at the decision by the resident doctors to down tools in a crucial period when the world was struggling to combat the COVID –
19 pandemic, saying Nigeria was the first country in the world where doctors went on strike during a global pandemic.

According to him, it was the worst time for a health system of any country would suffer hitches, adding that the ministry of health was ready to protect the lives of all Nigerians.

Ehanire said,

“One day, you will be sitting where we are sitting; you will be going through the same thing we are going through; it is a circle of life. In other countries, we have seen retired doctors and workers come out of retirement. Nigeria is the first country in the world where health workers went on strike during a pandemic.

“The Resident Doctors have told us their demands before calling off the strike. Certain steps need to be take. This evening the Ministry of Health will issue a directive to all Medical Directors to open a register by 7am and record all those who come to work and those who fail to report to come to work.”

While urging the striking doctors to read up the Labour Act and regulations of the International Labour Organisation on essential services, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, said he hoped the Resident Doctors saw reason and resume work without delay.

“It is our wish that after this meeting, NARD will now talk to their affiliate branches and call off this industrial action. I don’t want to go into the integrity of the industrial action. Whether you’re essential services or not, whether you are supposed to go on strike or not, I will only commend you and say go and read your Labour Act and also the ILO regulations on essential services workers of which I know you’re one.”

But the President of NARD, Dr. Aliyu Sokomba, insisted that the strike would only be called off only when the Federal Government came up with tangible outcome.

According to him, the major issues that necessitated the strike action were lack of life insurance for Resident Doctors, and the non-availability of protection, security and safety.

He lamented that despite the several industrial actions embarked upon by NARD with same challenges dating as far back as 2014, later in 2017 and 2019, government had continued to renege on its promises.

Sokomba said,

“I must say categorically, unlike what is generally perceived, that doctors in Nigeria have decided to embark on strike simply because of the non-payment of hazard allowances, that is not correct.

“As we all know, the hazard allowances in question are to be benefitted by all Doctors, Nurses, Pharmacists and all healthcare workers, we couldn’t have taken that as a reason to embark on an industrial action.

“We have chosen to embark on an industrial action because of the challenges we have always been having that has dated as far back as 2014, which some of them came up later in 2017 and recently, August 2019 August. We presented the same challenges to the Speaker of the National Assembly, he pleaded that we should reconsider extending the ultimatum and that led us to extend it to January.

“The Pension Act of 2004 captured group life insurance for not just Doctors and healthcare workers but all employees. According to the provision of the Pension Act (2004), any employer that has more than 20 employees must ensure their employers tune up three times their total annual emoluments.

“The most important issues that bother resident doctors to go on strike includes the issue of protection and security and safety of doctors, which is the issue of life insurance.

“For the past 15 years, no doctor has benefited from the group life insurance, even though we have lost over 150 Doctors in this period of time. We have been pursuing the group life insurance and we have been getting unfulfilled promises.

“As our members are falling dead, there is no group life insurance for them, and it makes us wonder that when we die there is no death benefit for our members to fall back to.”

The Punch