Striking doctors have been threatened by the Federal Government with no pay if they did not resume their duties.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Labour and Employment Chris Ngige on Friday, threatening to invoke labour laws.
Ngige said that he’d invite the doctors to a roundtable chat and if they “become recalcitrant, there are other things I can do.
“There are weapons in the Labour Laws, I will invoke them. There is no work, no pay,” Ngige said during a Channels Television programme Politics Today.
“Their employers have a role also to keep their business afloat, to keep patients alive. They can employ local doctors. We won’t get there but if we are going to get there, we will use that stick.”
Members of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) embarked on indefinite strike action on Thursday over gaps between the government’s promises and their resolutions.
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The President of the association Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi said that the government and the associations had a history of Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) “for over a decade now, and we insist on the implementation of what we wrote on our strike message.
“We’re not just doing this for resident doctors, we’re doing this for all heath workers.”
Speaking on the payment of the N5,000 hazard allowance promised by the FG but have yet to be paid, he said, “I raised it (issue of hazard allowance) with the Finance Minister and the Vice President in the Economic Sustainability Meeting. In fact, to use the words of the Vice President, he said it is criminal, that it shouldn’t happen.”
