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Benjamin Babine, Abuja
The Federal Government, yesterday, gave the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) 24 hours to review its position on their ongoing strike as both parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to end the crisis.
The meeting with the doctors’ union had in attendance the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige; Minister of State for Health, Dr. Olorunimbe Mamora, and Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Ahmed Idris, but failed to produce an immediate resolution to the strike, except the mandate to NARD to review their position on their strike.
Ngige who condemned the strike claiming that the Federal Government had fulfilled six of the eight demands of NARD aswell as paying another N9billion funding for life insurance for resident doctors.
The minister further claimed that the rate being paid to the doctors was the highest amongst all African countries. He said the present administration had been very generous to the health sector and raised the alarm that the association’s strike, if allowed to continue, would collapse the health sector.
“There are conditionalities for going on strike. Essentially services don’t go on strike, by ILO statutes. And if you go, the ILO statutes says we should hire new persons. I didn’t make it, it’s operational all over the world. It also states that you are not to be paid for the period you have withdrawn your services, so let us not use strike as a weapon to intimidate government.”
