By Hassan Zaggi
The National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), may suspend its strike action after it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Nigeria’s Federal Government.
This is even as most of the issues under contention have been discussed in details in a meeting between the Federal Government, the NARD and the Medical Consultant Association of Nigeria (MDCAN).
The President of the NARD, Dr. Okhuaihesuyi Uyilawa, confirmed this on Saturday after a meeting held Friday night.
In an earlier statement, the Deputy Director/Head (Press and Public Relations), Charles Akpan, said that the meeting which had the most high-powered representation since negotiations with doctors stretched for 11 hours, ending at about 1am Saturday, with all the consolidated 12-point demand by NARD, the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) and other affiliates of NMA resolved.
According to the statement, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige commended the President of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) Prof. Innocent Ujah for assuming his role as the leader of all doctors in Nigeria, saying all affiliate doctors’ associations are under the NMA.
He said: “When you talk to the children and they don’t listen well, you talk to their parents.
“The standing agreement that every negotiation by affiliate associations must be led by the NMA was not observed in the recent past.
“I therefore commend Ujah for assuming his role as the father of all doctors. I want you to play this role effectively and efficiently.”
However, the statement quoted the President of NMA, Professor Uja, as saying that the strike was avoidable and blamed some government functionaries for not playing their roles.
He thanked Senator Ngige for going the extra miles to ensure that officers across ministries and agencies who are relevant to tackling the doctors’ demands are put on their toes.
“At close door, the meeting tackled and resolved all the 12 point issues such as payment of House Doctors where Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria tabled evidence to show that 2,800 doctors have been paid and efforts ongoing to sort the outstanding 144; the N4.8B Residency Training Fund which the Budget Office assured would be paid in 7days.
“The arrears of the consequential adjustment of the National Minimum Wage which the meeting agreed, cuts across other sectors but that greater focus must be paid to clearing that of April to December 2019 which has no ambiguity.
“The Ministry of Health also revealed that as of August 3, 2021, a list from 38 hospitals has been forwarded to the Budget office for inclusion in the Service Wide Vote.”
Health Reporters gathered that the meeting also tackled the issue of locum doctors/emergency and migration to IPPIS, the bench fees and the hazard allowance which it agreed should be out of the negotiation table since the stalemate created by the disagreement between the NMA and JOHESU was responsible for the delay, as the Federal Government already mapped out N37.5B for it.
The decision of the National Council on Establishment, given effect by the Circular from the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation which excised house doctors and NYSC doctors from the scheme of service was also visited.
Also deliberated upon was skipping which is a consequential grade alignment as well as non-payment of three months COVID-19 allowance to some doctors in 2020, and migration of MDCAN to CONUAS among others.
In attendance at the Friday meeting were the Permanent Secretaries of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Dr Peter Tarfa, that of Ministry of Health, Mamman Mamuda and the Permanent Secretary, Service Welfare, Office of the Head of Service, Ngozi Onwudiwe.
Others are; Director General of the Budget Office, Ben Akabueze, Chairman of National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission, Ekpo Nta, representative of the Minister of State, Finance, Budget and Planning, representatives of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, leaders of the NMA, NARD, MDCAN among others.
