Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has given the federal government a two-week ultimatum to begin implementing pending agreements to avoid the threat of industrial imbalance.
NARD gave the ultimatum after it conducted an extraordinary National Executive Council meeting held on Zoom on Wednesday.
NARD’s President Dr Emeka Orji, said:
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“We are issuing a two-week ultimatum to the Federal Government to meet our demands with effect from today, Wednesday, July 5 to Friday, July 19, 2023.
“Unfortunately, none of the demands that made us embark on the five-day warning strike have been met. The government has not attended to any of them even after signing the Memorandum of Understanding. All the timelines on the demands have passed.
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“The circular for one-on-one replacement was signed in the MoU that it will be released on or before June 5, 2023, and this is over a month, nothing has been done and it has not been released. The government said the payment of the 2023 Medical Residency Training Fund will be paid when the 2023 fiscal year starts, we learnt the fiscal year started last month and up till now, it has not been paid.
“If the government does not meet our demands at the end of the ultimatum on July 19, industrial harmony cannot be guaranteed and from the feelers we have, it will no longer be a warning strike, it will definitely be an indefinite strike.”
The country’s resident doctors went on a five-day warning strike from May 17-21, 2023 to support the demands.
The association had signed a memorandum of understanding with the government to address issues raised by general practitioners.
Their demands included an immediate increase in the combined doctors’ salary structure to 200 per cent of the current gross doctors’ salary and immediate mass recruitment of hospital clinical staff.
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NARD asked that the federal government immediately repeals the bill requiring medical and dental graduates to serve five years of compulsory service in Nigeria before obtaining a full license to practice law, immediately upgrade hospital infrastructure following the 2001 Abuja Declaration, then allocate at least 15 per cent of its budget to health care.
They also requested to lift bureaucratic restrictions on the immediate mass hiring of hospital clinical staff and the immediate replacement of retired doctors and nurses.
A further demand was the immediate payment of the 2023 Medical Residency Training Fund, MRTF, as agreed by the stakeholder meeting convened by the Federal Ministry of Health on February 15, 2023, and others.
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