NARD says no member will resume work until
the Federal Government publicises the
communiqué on their agreement last year, fully
settle the arrears owed them, rectify the
bottlenecks with the new payment system and
set guideline on the Residency Training Policy.
NARD National President, Dr. Jubril Abdulahi,
told The Guardian, that the leadership is
assessing the claims by the Ministry of Health
that it has paid almost all the outstanding
debts.
“We have asked our various chapters to report
and submit what has been paid and what is
outstanding, he said.
“But the main issue now is the agreement we
had with the government last year. We want
them to bring out a communiqué on that
agreement. It is government that is holding us
to ransom. We are ready to call off strike. We
have a meeting tomorrow in Abuja by 4 p.m.”
Chapter President of NARD, Lagos University
Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Dr.
Emeka Ugwu, said yesterday: “We are still
collating the statistics of the payment from
the different centres. We are going to have
meetings this week. We are eager to go back
to our patients.
“We heard that they want to remove resident
doctors from the new payment system. They
should just correct the mistake. We don’t
want doctors to be removed from the payment
system. It is a wonderful payment system.
They should devise a way of making correction
and capture our members that are yet to
benefit.
“Government has paid most of our members’
arrears except for one or two months,
especially this month (October). They are
settling our arrears but the issue we want is
that we want to remain on it because it will
curb corruption.
“One of the things holding us back from calling
off the strike is the Residency Training Policy.
Government should bring out the guideline. We
are very optimistic that the strike may be
called off this week.”
At the weekend, Minister of Health, Prof.
Onyebuchi Chukwu, explained that the Federal
Government has settled 95 per cent of the
demands made by the doctors.
Speaking during a health walk in Lagos
organised by the Institute of Directors (IoD),
Chukwu said that, “all things being equal, I
think latest by next week, they should end the
strike.”
According to him, the main issue was the
introduction of new electronic platform, IPPS,
which had implementation issues, on account of
which some doctors were not paid, stating
that, “As Minister, I am also being paid by the
system that was introduced across all the
establishments owned by the Federal
Government.
“There were issues in implementation, which is
typical of most new schemes. So, some people
were not paid because of the question of
whether they should be included or excluded
from the system. That was the argument going
on, leading to the strike. But as at Friday last
week, they have all been sorted out.
“If there are one or two lingering issues, they
can be sorted out in a matter of time. But I
don’t think the country has to pay the very high
price of people losing their lives because
doctors do not attend to them, just because
they want to gain something that is not so
significant compared to what they are already
getting.”
He added that while all the Chief Medical
Directors (CMDs) of government hospitals
across the federation have confirmed receipt
of doctors’ salaries, few of the resident
doctors were yet to be paid as at weekend,
“which is a small fraction compared to the
greater number of those that have been paid.
“So I assure that others would be paid within
this week. If it has to do with government’s
commitment in the matter, they should have
called off the strike since last Friday. But I
guess they are insisting on paying every
doctor. I think everything should be put into
perspective – nothing should be do or die.” SOURCE
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