Doctors may resume nationwide strike if… – UCH NARD president

The National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) may after the expiration of six weeks suspension of its nationwide strike resume another industrial action if the federal government fails to meet all its demands.

NARD president, University College Hospital (UCH) chapter, Dr Temitope Hussein, gave this indication Tuesday in Ibadan at a press conference to commemorate the 2021 Physicians’ Week.

Dr Hussein said the federal government has not been sincere with NARD in fulfilling the promises made to the association members during the negotiations to suspend the nationwide strike.

Dr Hussain stated that many of the promises made by the FG are yet to be fulfilled despite all the promises the government made towards making NARD members suspend its strike.

Dr Hussein stated further that the association only suspended the strike for six weeks in order to allow the government to attend to their requests and demands with the hope that the FG will do the needful before the expiration of the six weeks to forestall the possibility of another strike.

“When we suspended the strike, we said we are going to give the federal government six weeks and this is the second week, they’ve done one and a half out of about ten items. I hope they come forth to do the others in order to forestall any further industrial action.

“Our requests are specific and they have not been met. Out of all the things we requested, may be about one of them has been done. So we can say that government has not been sincere with us.

“We just suspended our strike and some of the promises the government made has not been fulfilled. For example, the MRTS that was said to have been paid, less than sixty percent of doctors have received the MRTS and it is very disheartening that despite all the promises the government made, they still have not been able to resolve the matters we presented before them.

“So now as we speak, for instance in the University College Hospital (UCH), about 200 of our members are still being owed salaries up to five months though they’ve been captured on the IPPIS platform.

“They still have not been paid and some of the matters such as hazard allowance have not been resolved. Though we’ve called off our strike in good fate, the federal government has not done the needful in acceding to the demands that we made.”