Resident doctors call off strike, set to resume work, Wednesday

Members of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) have called off their over two-month old industrial action which has disrupted medical services across public hospitals nationwide.

The strike has seen the intervention by House of Representatives, state governors, Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) fail to move the striking resident doctors to budge on their demands.

NAED vowed not to suspend the nationwide strike until all the 17-point demands are met.

The demands include: Immediate payment of salary arrears and skipping arrears from 2014 to 2016 which amounted to N23 billion; stoppage of the casualization of Doctors, immediate withdrawal of the controversial circular on the removal of Health Officers from Scheme of Service as well as regularization of employment of some of the Resident Doctors employed by public hospitals during emergency situations.

The demand according to NARD are contained in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) reached between the doctors and the Federal Government, which the latter had renegaed on.

However, the Federal Government, in its own defence had claimed that most of the items in the demands by the doctors are squarely at the hands of State Governors where the medical practitioners operate.

NARD noted that the basis of the suspension was the obvious efforts by the Federal Government to fulfil some of its minimum demands such as the payment of the Medical Residency Training Fund (MRTF), payment of outstanding salaries to its members on GIFMIS platform, withdrawal of the circular by the Head of Service removing House Officers from the Scheme of Service, payment of death-in-service benefits to its members who lost their lives in the line of duty during the COVID-19 pandemic, among others.

President of the NARD, Dr Dare Ishaya, who confirmed, Monday, the suspension of the strike, further stated that its members will resume work on Wednesday this week by 8 am.

Ishaya said that the decision to call off the strike was made in an emergency meeting with the association’s national executive council.

“We’ve officially suspended the strike to resume 8:00 am on Wednesday. We made the decision in the wee hours of today. We held an emergency meeting from 5:30pm on Sunday to the morning hours of today, and the NEC decided that having reviewed the progress made so far, the strike should be suspended.’’

The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), in a communique signed by the Secretary-General, Ekpe Philips Uche, after the meeting held among delegates of NMA and NARD on Sunday in Abuja, advised NARD to call off the ongoing industrial action.

At the meeting, NMA mandated the National Officers Committee, NOC, to ensure the implementation of the new Memorandum of Understanding signed with the Federal Government on August 21.

The association asked NOC to report back to the National Executive Council of NMA periodically on the progress being made on implementing the memorandum of understanding.

Resident doctors are medical school graduates training as specialists. They are pivotal to frontline healthcare in Nigeria as they dominate the emergency wards in its hospitals.

NARD had declared an industrial action since, Monday, August 2 to press home their demands for implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding it reached with the Federal Government in March 2021 on welfare and other issues that affect members.

NARD is protesting salary shortfalls stretching over months, failure to pay some doctors COVID-19 allowances and shortages of manpower in hospitals were among the reasons that had pushed its members to strike.

It would be recalled that last month, September 4, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chief Chris Ngige announced that the Federal Government had met all demands by the striking NARD members, except for one item.

Addressing State House Correspondents after meeting behind closed doors with President Muhammadu Buhari, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige disclosed that it has addressed all the demands of the striking doctors except the one on ‘no work no pay’ rule.

“We have come to an agreement on all the demands including those that even affect the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria and the medical Doctors who are in the academics and teaching in universities.

 “So, we have handled all, the only point of disagreement now is that they said that in the memorandum of action, government should insert or include that section 43 of the trade dispute act should not apply to them. That section says that when a worker withdraws his services from his employer, the employer is at liberty to withhold payment of emolument to him.

He said the Nigerian government will never be a party to such an agreement or grant such a request.

“So this is where we are with them and we are saying that even if anybody cares to put it in any agreement, that clause would be void ab-initio because it is against the law of the land and we will not as a government succumb to condole arm twisting and sign that.”

The Minister said it was unfortunate that the strike is taking so long because, in other climes, people on essential services like the health sector don’t go on strike arbitrarily.

“Overseas and other climes, you don’t strike for more than 3-5 days highest. Much more importantly, people on essential services; medical services in particular, where u can lose lives, they don’t go on strike anyhow. They only piquet and things like that because people’s lives are involved,” he said.

According to the minister, the ‘no work no pay’ rule had been applied in the past and the case of the resident doctors cannot be an exception.

“Other workers have lost their pay during strike, the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) lost their pay in 2018, when they went on four months’ strike, they lost about two or three months’ pay when the ‘no work no pay’ was invoked.

“Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) ‘no work no pay’ applied to them, nobody paid them anything for six months and it was during COVID so, we can handle things administratively but nobody should arm-twist,” he said.