Workers’ Day: Labour Minister Slams Resident Doctors Over Plan To Embark On Strike

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has berated the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) for planning to embark on strike over their demands from the federal government.

The resident doctors had on Saturday given the federal government two weeks to meet its demands or face industrial disharmony.

The resident doctors made this known in a communiqué issued on Saturday at the end of its Extraordinary National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

The doctors listed some of their demands to include the welfare of the doctors, the alarming rate of their flight to other countries, poor remuneration, inadequate funding of the health sector, and the attendant negative effect on the citizens and the health workers.

Other demands are the immediate increment in the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS) to the tune of 200 percent of the current gross salaries of doctors in addition to the new allowances on the review of the CONMESS.

The NARD also demanded the immediate withdrawal and jettisoning of the bill seeking to compel medical and dental graduates to render five-year compulsory services in Nigeria before being granted full licenses to practice.

However, while speaking in an interview on Arise Television on Monday, Ngige said the doctors cannot embark on strike over a bill seeking to compel them to stay in the country for five years before being granted full licenses to practice.

The minister stated that the government will not pay any doctor or medical worker that goes on strike over demands that are currently being addressed.