Strike looms as resident doctors give FG 2-week ultimatum
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In case the Federal Government does not comply with its requests within the next two weeks, the National Association of Resident Doctors, or NARD, has threatened to shut down the healthcare industry.
Along with a 200 percent pay raise for physicians, NARD demands the immediate withdrawal and abandonment of a bill that would have prevented Nigerian medical professionals from receiving full licenses to practice or from traveling abroad for five years.
Dr. Emeka Innocent, the president of NARD, delivered the statement that was released during the association’s Extraordinary National Executive Council Meeting in Abeokuta, Ogun State, on Saturday.
The Consolidated Medical Salary Structure, or CONMESS, which was last reviewed more than 10 years ago, needs to be evaluated again, Innocent stated, “despite many interactions with FG on the matter.
“The administration has not addressed the matter in any way or invited NARD to the negotiating table. Due to the compensation structure reform, the government had already been given deadlines.
Innocent expressed displeasure over the government’s refusal to pay salary arrears from 2014, 2015, and 2016 as well as the arrears of the subsequent adjustment to the minimum wage. He also pointed out that many state governors have not yet domesticated the MRTA or improved the hazard allowance paid to NARD members.
“The body demanded an “immediate increment in the CONMESS salary structure to the tune of 200% of the current gross salary of doctors in addition to the new allowances included in the letter written by NARD to the Honorable Minister of Health on the 7th of July 2022 for the review of CONMESS” in the nine-point resolutions.
Other demands include starting the payment of all salary arrears owed to our members, including the salary arrears for 2014, 2015, and 2016, as well as areas of the consequential adjustment of the minimum wage.
He claims that a two-week deadline to address all of these requests starts on Saturday, April 29, 2023, and that if it expires on May 13, we might not be able to ensure industrial peace in the industry nationally.
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