COVID-19: Doctors threaten indefinite strike over working conditions

Gives 14 days ultimatum for govt to resolve their issues

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) have threatened to embark on an indefinite strike should the government fail to resolve issues revolving around the welfare and safety of its members.
The NARD stated that the Federal Government is paying lip service to the welfare of health workers, especially when it concerns the review of hazard allowances and life insurance, which it says is active only on the pages of newspapers.

While demanding for the reinstatement of 26 of its members who were ‘illegally’ sacked in Jos, the Association disclosed that some States government have chosen this critical and wrong time in the country to slash the salaries of health workers.

  Speaking with the Nation, the President of the NARD, Dr. Aliyu Sokomba, said: “The illegal disengagement of 26 resident doctors at Jos University Teaching Hospital in the face of this pandemic without recourse to the law governing the Residency training is one of the paramount issues that we believe should not only be addressed but also an apology issued to those affected.
“Our stand is that if there is anyone that is due to be disengaged, even if it is by tomorrow the person should be disengaged. But we cannot tolerate illegal disengagement of people without recourse to the Residency Training Program.
“We demand immediate recall of the sacked resident doctors at Jos and payments of their salaries.
  Secondly, the residency training itself has not been implemented for some time now, even though there is already an Act enacted that was timed as far back as 2017. The part of the act states that there shall be funding for the program and people who are not able to finish their program in good time will be disengaged.
 The government has decided to implement part of the Act that says you should disengage them when they don’t finish their program, but has failed to implement the part that says you should fund their program. This is without prejudice to what is happening in Jos because what is happening in Jos is that the Act was totally abandoned and they illegally disengaged them.