The National Executive Council meeting of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors has been adjourned till Wednesday after reaching an inconclusive end.

The council is expected to make a decision on whether or not association members should engage in industrial action.

The meeting was called as a follow-up to earlier ones conducted to address the doctors’ ultimatum to the state and federal governments.

Recall that on July 30, 2022, the resident doctors gave the federal government a two-week ultimatum to follow all of the agreements it had with them or face an indefinite strike.

The payment of the recently revised Medical Residency Training Fund, the quick implementation of the new hazard allowance and payment of arrears are only a few of the demands made by NARD.

At the expiration of the ultimatum, the resident doctors shifted their decision on the ultimatum by one week to give room for more dialogue between the parties involved, particularly with the Federal Ministry of Finance.

Again, on August 21, 2022, the association extended the ultimatum by two weeks to give room for intervention by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour and Employment. It then scheduled an extraordinary NEC meeting from Friday, August 19 to Sunday, August 21, 2022, at Ilorin, Kwara State.

Also, after the expiration of the ultimatum on September 5, the association scheduled another extraordinary NEC meeting for Saturday, September 10, 2022, in Jos, Plateau State.

However, after several hours of deliberations, the NEC could not reach a concrete decision on the ultimatum.

Speaking with Punch on Sunday, the NARD President, Dr Dare Ishaya, said the council adjourned and would reconvene virtually on Wednesday.

Ishaya said, “We are on recess and we are resuming on Wednesday by 4pm to conclude the meeting. We are on recess because some contentious issues may lead to an unfavourable outcome.

“I have seen some progress and I want the progress to materialise so that I wouldn’t allow the NEC to take decisions based on the mood and I didn’t want the decisions to be taken on some of the issues like the MRTF allowance, hazard allowance and the committee to look into paying them.

“I have seen significant progress but there are some details I don’t have to be able to persuade the majority. Many are convinced but the result is not as overwhelming or as significant as I think, so I don’t want to risk deciding on it.

“We have been making some progress but some say they are not convincing enough while some believe they are convincing. So, I don’t want to have a divided house so that we don’t have an outcome that is not good.”

“We will have the meeting on Wednesday virtually on zoom.”

Meanwhile the Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) has threatened to embark on a 2-week industrial action in the health sector if the federal government fails to pay attention to their complaints.

President of the association Dr. Victor Makanjuola who spoke the position of the association on Sunday, blamed the government for the problems in the country’s health sector.

He blamed the problems in the nation’s health sector on largely unresolved issues by the government, with health care workers leaving the shores of the country in droves for more secure climes with better conditions of service.

“In the last two years, over 500 consultants have left the services of governments’ hospitals for practice abroad. All our government hospitals are consultant-led, which is the global standard practice.

“Now, we lose 500 consultants in just two years and we have found out that those who are more likely to leave are the younger ones,” Makanjuola said.

He said to sustain the system and be able to train the next generation of medical doctors and medical students, the country needed to retain older consultants who are in their 50s and getting closer to their retirement so that they can stay back and train the next generation of doctors and medical students.

“The disaster which brain drain will bring will be doubled because we will lose the younger ones and the older ones will retire about the same time, and unfortunately we will find a medical system without consultants. This will affect the standard of health care given by the hospital,” the association’s President said.

He explained that to address the problem, the government should increase the retirement age for consultants in hospitals from the current 60 years to 70 years.

He added that stakeholders could also tap into medical entrepreneurship, an area that has not been tapped, noting that it had the potential to minimize brain drain and encourage brain gain.

The President lamented that efforts by the government had been inadequate in addressing the challenges in the health sector.

He warned that the union could not guarantee industrial harmony in government hospitals if the demands of the workers were not met in two weeks; urging well-meaning Nigerians to intervene to avert an impending crisis.

The MDCAN also appealed to National Assembly to dump the obnoxious bill seeking to amend the Teaching Hospital Act in its entirety.

Addressing newsmen in Benin City at the end of the national executive council (NEC) meeting of the Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), Makanjuola said efforts by the government have been inadequate in addressing these problems.

He said, “the apparent intention of the relevant government agencies to engender disruption of services in secondary and tertiary health institutions across the country, by the failure to implement the payment of the approved hazard allowance, pay outstanding arrears occasioned by skipping, extend the retirement age of health workers to limit ongoing massive brain drain in the health sector as well as correct the shortfall in the salaries of honorary consultants who are clinical lecturers in the University.”

Makanjuola who noted that the government has refused to address these despite repeated negotiations and pledge to resolve these issues advised the government to note that “we cannot guarantee industrial harmony in the government hospitals if these demands are not met within the next two weeks. We therefore call on all well-meaning Nigerians to intervene in order to avert the impending crisis.”