A meeting held between the leadership of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) and the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Health, Tanko Sununu over the ongoing strike ended in deadlock.
Also present at the meeting was the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire; Minister of State for Health, Olorunnimbe Mamora; and some other stakeholders.
The meeting, which lasted for about seven hours, was adjourned till Tuesday (today).
He said, “The meeting lasted for seven hours. We started at 11am and we ended the meeting by 6pm. We discussed issues, including the medical residency funds among others but no consensus has been reached.
“The meeting has been adjourned till tomorrow (Tuesday). We will be meeting tomorrow again by 11am.”
Federal Government on Monday said the ongoing strike by the Nigeria Association of Resident Doctors was due to the outbreak of the Delta variant of COVID – 19.
The government added that the doctors should reconsider, suspend the shrike in national interest and return to the negotiating table.
The Minister of State (Labour and Employment), Festus Keyamo (SAN), stated these during the capacity strengthening training workshop on advocacy and communication for women cooperatives from the the Nigerian for Women Projects.
The event was organised by Development Research and Projects Centre and sponsored by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other partners.
Keyamo said most of the agreements causing industrial relations ripples between government and labour unions were inherited by previous administrations.
He said, “I think government should live up to its responsibilities to workers; agreements that are signed should be respected, most of these agreements, we inherited them.
In the past, it used to be that many governments had to enter into agreements that were perhaps not workable, just because they wanted to get over the problem and so they acted in bad faith with labour unions.
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“That, of course, is not acceptable at all, but if you get into agreement with workers, it is the bonding duty of government to also respect those agreements.
“The only thing is the procedure for airing your grievances. If, for instance, like we do in the Ministry of Labour, your strike is apprehended, we in labour relations know strike is not a war.”
For the health workers, the problem is the Ministry of Health, we are the ones who try to make peace at the Ministry of Labour, but once we know that a strike has been declared, we quickly apprehend the strike by calling them immediately to the round table and I wanted to say that my colleagues and I never abdicate the responsibility to immediately intervene.
“So we appeal to health workers, especially at this time when we have the outbreak of the Delta variant of COVID – 19, we should not have a situation where health workers are going on strike. So it’s an appeal to the health workers to please look at it from this angle.”
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