While striking resident doctors refused to sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Federal Government on their demands, the Nigerian Medical Association, (NMA) have signed the document.
The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, (NARD) said it will not sign the MoU, vowing to continue the ongoing strike until their demands are met.
National President of NARD, Dr Okhuaihesuyi Uyilawa, who represented resident doctors during the stakeholders’ meeting with the Federal Government over the weekend said, “We rejected the MoU, we didn’t sign it because we feel we are being punished for the failures of those in government.”
President Muhammadu Buhari had
directed that a meeting be held between the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, the NMA and NARD to ensure all the issues presented by the bodies were resolved.
The NMA attended the meeting only to intervene for the resident doctors.
NARD president said they plan to take their case to the National Industrial Court, NIC.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Ngige after meeting with the NMA on Saturday had said the federal government will commence the implementation of its Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with the NMA on Monday, August 23.
The minister said all the 12 disputed issues had been addressed.
Ngige said that it was agreed that resident doctors in institutions will start receiving their money by Friday, August 27, with each doctor receiving about N542, 000.
Concerning hazard allowance, due to the number of deaths recorded among health workers as a result of COVID-19, Ngige said it was agreed that it will be discussed with the separate associations involved.
“Coming to hazard allowance, everybody agreed that the discussion is still ongoing and, therefore, the government wants to finish it up. We agreed with NMA’s position to us that they don’t want to discuss holistically anymore as an association and that they have their peculiarities that are not the same with other health workers.
“We are going to do two meetings, one for NMA and affiliates and one for JOHESU. But we are taking the meetings concurrently, so we don’t run into troubled waters. We are starting next week,’’ he said.
On the controversial circular which removed NYSC doctors and house officers from the scheme of service, Ngige instructed the NMA to state their position so that it can be put in a circular that will be sent to the Head of Service of the Federation, who will look at the inputs given by NMA to the circular and process it. Ngige said NMA had promised it will ensure that the matters surrounding the strike are settled out of court.
“NMA has undertaken that they should tell the two members and their association to do an out of court settlement by withdrawing the matter from the industrial court until we finish the negotiation. We gave a time for negotiation. Ngige said he hoped that state governments will learn to pull their weights in handling matters in the health sector.
“On the issues relating to states, there is no way the Federal Government will start pulling the states on the issue of domestication of Medical Residency Training Programme by their various Houses of Assembly and government and issue of Medical Training Residency Fund.
‘’We also have the issue of non-payment of COVID-19 allowances by some state governments and consequential minimum wage adjustments.
“We have before now made contact with the Governor’s Forum on these matters and the onus is now on us as the Ministry of Labour to talk to the Governors Forum and impress on them on the need for this to be done.
“The Medical Residency Training and accompanying Fund is already in the Act which the Federal Government has signed. We will impress it on them as part of strengthening the health system so that we are not starved of specialist doctors. There is an urgent need for them to adopt that.
“This will also help us to stem the issue of brain drain. The Federal Government cannot employ everybody. We want state governments to pay more attention to secondary and tertiary health,’’ Ngige said.
