Resident doctors say strike continues

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) says its strike continues, though the planned protest has been put on hold.

NARD President, Dr Innocent Orji, said this yesterday in an interview on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily.

He said the Ministry of Health had not reached out to the association.

NARD has been on an indefinite strike since July 26 after the expiration of a two-week ultimatum to the federal government for the implementation of its demands.

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The demands include payment of the 2023 medical residency training fund, release of the circular on one-for-one replacement, payment of skipping arrears and upward review of consolidated medical salary structure (CONMESS) in line with full salary restoration to the 2014 value of CONMESS.

Orji said, “Yes, we put on hold the protest that was supposed to start this morning (Wednesday), but the strike is continuing. We’ll review again in 72 hours. That’s the position of our National Executive Council.

“We started this strike about two weeks ago after series of notices and ultimatum given to the government but it looks as if there was no move on the part of the government to resolve the issue that led to the strike.

“Being concerned about Nigerians, we felt it’ll not be good to just remain on strike without making effort to quickly resolve the issue so that we can come back to work.

“So, our members met on Saturday. We still gave another window for government to meet us and resolve the issue before the protest.

“The Ministry of Health has not spoken to us since we started the strike. Unfortunately, if they said they’ve done that, then we need evidence.

“We saw what they were doing, some of the government officials who are supposed to call us and take responsibility, they didn’t call. They were just issuing statements.”