Eight days later and the strike endures, with no signs of doctors returning to work, as they remain unyielding in their requests presented to the Federal Government, while the government, on the other hand, retains its position: “return to work or get fired”.
Doctors, under the aegis of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) staged a protest which started last week Monday over unpaid salaries.
According to the doctors, the Federal Government failed to make good on its promise to pay salaries, arrears, and other benefits to doctors, which formed the basis for strike action in April this year.
The Federal Government and the leadership of NARD met in April to sign a memorandum of understanding that led to the calling off of the strike action on 10 April 2021.
The current strike action is a reiteration of the issues that were tabled to the Federal Government that were yet to be addressed, as the association said that its members could go on working unpaid.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, the President of NARD, Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, said, “You can’t have signed an MOA (memorandum of agreement) with us and (say) everything you have said, and you have not even called us since the beginning of 2nd of August, 8 am, when the strike started.
“The first thing you’re telling us is that we signed a document and we are not honouring it, (and) we need to resume work. They need to stand up to their responsibilities.”
At the height of the pandemic in 2020, the government had pledged to pay doctors N5,000 hazard allowance that the association said was yet to reach many of its members.
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Government’s Position on Doctors’ Strike
The Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, who also appeared on the Sunrise Daily programme said that he was not going to give an audience to the doctors.
He expressly said, “I won’t meet them.”
Explaining why, he simply said, “because I have other things to do”.
“They will not receive money for the period that they are on strike and it will never count for a pensionable position in their career,” he added.
The Minister of State for Health, Olurunnimbe Mamora, on his part, has called on doctors to negotiate with the government, stating that the current administration was working to improve the country’s healthcare system and would need the doctors to achieve its plans.
He asked that doctors resumed work so that “citizens can reap maximum benefits from your efforts.”
Mamora added, “In saying this, there cannot be a better time and opportunity for me to appeal to doctors who are currently on strike.
“My appeal is that they return to the negotiating table so that whatever outstanding issues can be sorted out. That is my passionate appeal to all our colleagues.
“Even in times of war, the combatants at the end of the day come to the roundtable for amicable resolution of issues. That is my appeal to our colleagues all over the country who are currently engaged in the strike for the benefit of our people.”
Nigeria currently faces a resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic that has re-emerged as the deadly delta variant, with more than 6,000 fresh cases reported by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
The strike and the non-dialogue from both parties present more complications to the already complicated healthcare delivery system in the country, hampered by institutional lapses.
