Resident Doctors  Gives  FG 2 Weeks Ultimatum To Improve Welfare of Members

El Yakuq Ibraheem

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors has issued a two-week ultimatum to the federal government to expedite action by implementing the new national minimum wage, hazard allowance, and other approved funds for its members or risk industrial disharmony.

The association said the federal government’s failure to comply with its demand within the time frame, may foist the association to down tools

The position of the union was contained in a communique jointly signed by NARD’s President, Dare Ishaya, secretary general, Suleiman Abiodun, publicity and social secretary, Alfa Yusuf, and made available to Journalists at the end of the national executive Council  (NEC) meeting and scientific conference of NARD with the theme, ”The Quagmire of Medical Workplace Hazards: Defending A Nation Under A Shade of Arrows”.

The communique reads in part, “The NEC observed with dismay the unnecessary delay in the new hazard allowance for over seven months since its approval on December 22nd, 2021. also observed the delay in the payment of the 2020 Medical Residency Training Fund (MRTF), to our members who were omitted despite several efforts made by the association.

The NEC noted that several years after implementing a new minimum wage in 2019, some of our members are yet to benefit from the consequential adjustment of the minimum wage.

As the 2023 appropriation bill is being prepared, the NEC calls for increased funding of the healthcare sector in the country to the tune of 15 percent budgetary allocations in line with the 2001 Abuja declaration for health care financing in Africa and global best practices.

The national executive Council urges the federal government to take steps towards curtailing the brain drain in the health sector and by finding ways of eliminating all bottlenecks in the employment and replacement of resident doctors leaving our institutions daily to seek greener pastures.

By the expiration of the two-week ultimatum, the NEC shall reconvene to review the progress made so far and take further actions for which the nationwide industrial harmony may not be guaranteed.”

The communique further enjoined the federal government and all state governors to look into the issue of assault on doctors and thoroughly investigate the ongoing cases and put measures in place to nip the menace in the bud to forestall future occurrences.

Resident doctors called on the FG, the Nigerian Governors Forum, stakeholders, and well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the governors of Imo, Ondo, Ekiti, and Gombe states to urgently pay arrears of salaries and allowances owed its members in the states’ Tertiary Health Institutions, lamenting that the matter was becoming embarrassing.

While expressing gratitude to the Nasarawa state governor, Abdullahi Sule for approving and commencing the Medical Residency Training Fund payment to resident doctors at the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital (DASH) Lafia.

NARD appealed to the governor to fulfill his promise of employing the wife of their deceased member who died of workplace hazard into the state civil service as it was done to the two spouses of their other colleagues who died from Lassa Fever last year.