On Monday, members of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) embarked on a strike action following the failure of government to honour previous agreements reached with the union. The association’s president, Dr. John Onyebueze, in a statement, said they were disturbed that neither the federal nor state governments showed commitment to the issues at stake.
The lingering issues, according to him, include the demand for the enrollment of medical personnel on the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), remediation of shortfall in salaries, defraying arrears of members in both state and federal tertiary health facilities as well as implementation of the adjusted house officers’ entry level since 2014. He insisted that his members, despite their commitment and selfless services to humanity, would not beg to be paid.
It is sad that, once again, Nigerians have to deal with a strike action by doctors, which has become a recurring feature due to unfulfilled promises by the government. The doctors are the backbone of the health sector, hence, the effect of their strike on the populace cannot be over-emphasized. Every time doctors embark on strike, Nigerians die from illnesses because of the lack of medical personnel to attend to them at affordable government hospitals, and their inability to pay the throat-cutting charges at private hospitals. In view of the importance of the health sector, government should not have allowed the matter to degenerate to this level. The health of citizens should be a priority of government.
The attitude of government, of waiting for workers in different sectors to threaten to embark on industrial action before it begins to implement agreements it reached with such workers, is totally unacceptable. It is for this same reason that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) abandoned their classrooms since August 14, 2017, leaving students to hibernate at the parents’ homes or stranded in university towns. Over the years, governments have signed agreements as cosmetic measures to tackle pressing industrial crisis only to fail to follow up with agreed actions. Such attitude has compelled many industrial unions in the country to resort to strike actions whenever demands are not met, because it is believed that embarking on strike is the only way to get government’s attention.
This is not the first time doctors would embark on strike this year. On January 6, NARD had embarked on a one-day protest rally over the non-payment of their November and December 2016 salaries, and had warned that it would embark on a total strike if the payments were not made. A serious government should not be toying with the lives of its citizens in this manner. Why should government enter into an agreement if it does not intend to honour its own side of the bargain? We call on government factor the cost of the agreements it reaches with labour unions into its annual budgets so it could easily redeem them.
The doctors further raised an important issue, which is the alleged diversion of funds meant for them to other projects by Chief Medical Directors (CMDs). Government should set up machineries to ensure that the CMDs fingered in the allegation are probed and anyone found guilty should be made to face the law. The government should do regular audit of the finances of its health facilities as a way of ensuring that issues like these do not arise. All other issues including IPPIS should also be looked into and addressed.
We also appeal to the doctors to be considerate in their demands. As negotiations between its leaders and government team are ongoing, they, in public interest, should be realistic in their demands, and make concessions to government in the context of the current economic realities, so that they can quickly return to hospitals to prevent the loss of too many lives.
