Follow Us on Google
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Consultant Doctors under the umbrella of Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association (MDCAN) has shifted the proposed nationwide strike by four weeks.
The senior doctors had proposed to commenced nationwide strike on Monday over unpaid entitlements and other sundry issues.
National President of MDCAN, Prof. Ken Ozoilo, told Daily Sun that the decision to shift the strike by four weeks was take by the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Association at the meeting on Sunday
He said the decision was allow for more dialogue between the parties involved, particularly the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, and National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission.
Prof. Ozoilo in a WhatsApp message to Daily Sun Correspondent said, “In view of the current challenges in the health sector and the commitment of the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, the NEC of MDCAN has extended the ultimatum by four weeks starting from Monday, 16th August, 2021.”
The umbrella body of Consultants, few weeks ago, threatened to withdraw their services nationwide from August 16th, 2021, over unpaid entitlements, welfare packages and conditions of service.
The planned strike, they said, would have been total, absolute and indefinite, and expectedly, would have added to the frustrations of patients, and also had devastating effect on medical education and clinical services across the country.
MDCAN President disclosed that all efforts at previously engaging various arms and agencies of government with the aim of achieving a negotiated peaceable solution in the past 10 years has failed, hence the decision to withdraw services effective August 16th.
Some of their grievances relate to unfair labour treatment being received from their employers, in which they have taken steps to redress but failed.
Prof. Ozoilo said they are unhappy with the continued underpayment of members who are clinical lecturers in Universities across Nigeria, against the backdrop of the letter from the National Salaries, Incomes And Wages Commission (NSIWC) of 23rd April 2021, Ref no: SWC/S/04/S.410/T/86, to the Office of the Account General of the Federation (OAGF) directing the removal of doctors who are lecturers from the CONMESS salary scale on the IPPIS platform for the payment of their salaries in the Universities.
He said the NEC of the Association observed that its members have suffered massive income loss in the past 10 years, and it was the direct result of the fact that they do two full time jobs in both the Universities and the teaching hospitals.
He stressed the fact that their work in the teaching hospitals is undercompensated, and also the fact that the remuneration system in the University does not recognize them as doctors, despite the fact that the University primarily employs them because of the fact that they are doctors.
They also observed that the income loss has led to increasing difficulty in attracting the brightest and the best of Consultants into the University as lecturers, a steady exodus of the few doctors in academia to service centres and a worsening of the brain drain phenomenon.
It demanded that a directive be issued to the effect that all Universities previously paying their clinical lecturers on CONMESS scale before the aforesaid NSIWC letter should revert to that practice immediately.
Similarly, it demanded immediate placement of all clinical lecturers in the remaining universities on CONMESS scale for the purpose of their remuneration in the University, alternatively, award a compensation for the income loss incurred by doctors in the University on account of being lecturers, provided that it reflect in their pension contributions.
The Association also suggested that doctors migrating from teaching hospitals to the Universities upon completion of residency training should do so with their salaries personal to them. It rejected a practice whereby Senior Registrars lose income when they migrate from the teaching hospitals to become lecturers 1 in the University.
