National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, has today embarked on three days warning strike following the federal government’s failure to implement some of the agreements reached in the past eight months.
This was contained in a statement made available to newsmen yesterday at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, AKTH, Kano and signed by the national president, NARD, Dr Jibril Abdullahi. The statement called on all their members across the country to comply with the decision, unless in places where there are situations of emergencies.
According to him issues such as non-payment of the two months salaries of NARD members in Federal Medical Centre, Owerri and issuance of letters of reversal of skipping of CONMESS 2 to doctors by Federal Medical Centre, Birnin Kudu in Jigawa State and Neuropsychiatric Hospital Maiduguri in Borno State are the major unacceptable developments that prompted the strike action.
He blamed the Federal Ministry of Health for noncompliance with the circular from the office of Head of Service of the Federation which allowed for corrections in the previous circular and instead they instructed the federal medical centres not to allow resident doctors to skip GL 12.
On the payment of adjustment allowance, NARD resolved that, “Now that the 2014 budget has become law, we urged the federal government to commence the implementation of the circular on the above signed issues signed on January 3rd, 2014 in order to obviate the difficulty in payment of arrears once they accumulate due to delayed implementation’’.
Dr Jibril said NARD had rejected what the federal government offered regarding these issues, thus warning strike is inevitable.
He said, “NARD is not unmindful of the security challenges in the country, but only a call on the Ministry of Health to be committed to comprehensively address the agreements reached in the past”.
He highlighted some burning issues contained in the agreements which included addressing disparity in salaries of resident doctors, pharmacists and other health workers and call to duty, rural posting and teaching allowances.
