Resident doctors to begin strike on Monday over ‘irregular payment of salaries’

The National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has asked its members to commence a nationwide strike on Monday.

Okhuaihesuyi Uyilawa, president of the association, said the directive was issued after the NARD national executive council (NEC) meeting on Saturday.

The doctors had embarked on a strike on April 1 to protest the failure of the government to fulfil an agreement signed with the union.

NARD later suspended the strike on April 10, following the signing of a new agreement with the federal government, concerning issues raised in a 13-point demand.

However, more than two months after the new agreement was signed, the resident doctors say the federal government has failed to meet most of their demands.

On June 24, NARD gave the federal government four weeks to resolve all “pending issues” in the agreement.

Speaking to journalists after the NEC meeting on Saturday in Abia state, Uyilawa accused the government of failing to fulfil its own part of the agreement.

“We are embarking on a total and indefinite strike on August 2, 2021. You can recall we had a memorandum of action on March 31, 2021, and had an addendum to it on April 9, and since then, we still have had irregularities in the payment of salaries to the house officers,” he said.

“We had issues with them, being non-regular payment, and as part of the memorandum of action, it was said that they should be captured back into the IPPIS platform.

“You are aware that we lost 19 members to COVID-19 and death in service insurance was supposed to be paid to their next of kin.

“The last time we met the minister of labour and minister of health, we were told that our members are part of those to be given the insurance benefit, but we found out that their names are not even there.”