Medical doctors under the aegis of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) on Tuesday night declared an indefinite nationwide strike during the National Executive Council meeting in Lagos.
The association’s president, Dr. Orji Emeka Innocent, said that the strike will commence at midnight on Tuesday.
The strike comes after a two-week ultimatum was given to the Federal Government by NARD for its demands to be implemented.
The doctors claimed in a communique following the virtual extraordinary National Executive Council (NEC) meeting on Tuesday that despite giving the government a two-week ultimatum, it was taking too long to comply with their demands.
The communique said, “The resolutions of the conciliatory meeting chaired by the then Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment were yet to be implemented, seven weeks after, despite the set timelines for their implementation.”
The NARD president noted that the significant demands of the association are: immediate payment of the 2023 Medical Residency Training Fund (MRTF), immediate release of the circular on one-for-one replacement, payment of skipping arrears, and upward review of CONMESS in line with complete salary restoration to the 2014 value of CONMESS.
Others are payment of the arrears of consequential adjustment of minimum to the omitted doctors, reversal of the downgrading of the membership certificate by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN ), payment of MRTF, new hazard allowance, skipping and implementation of corrected CONMESS in State Tertiary Health Institutions and payment of omitted hazard allowance arrears.
Meanwhile, Tajudeen Abbas, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, met privately on Monday to discuss putting an end to the strike with the NARD leadership.
Abbas announced the formation of an ad hoc committee to meet with all the stakeholders and address the issue, and he promised to meet with President Bola Tinubu to prevent the resident doctors strike.
Ada Peter
