Members of the public may be asking why the Association of Resident Doctors, ESUT Teaching Hospital branch, led its members to withdraw their services, when the whole world is in an emergency health situation.

This inevitable question may present the association and its membership as insensitive and self-seeking.

But this would amount to passing judgement on an accused without hearing his own side of the case. It is axiomatic that, by training and practice, medical doctors are a disciplined, gentle, empathetic, patient and responsible set of professionals.

The Resident Doctors in Parklane have demonstrated abundance of these attributes by patiently earning far less than their counterparts in similar institutions in Nigeria, since the CONMESS Salary Structure became operational in 2009.

After 10 years of fruitless negotiations, during which they were paid salaries grossly inferior to what their colleagues elsewhere received, they said, "Enough is enough," and had to declare industrial action on March 26, 2020.

The Ugwuanyi administration in Enugu State, rightly saw that the doctors had a strong case, and acted promptly by approving their demands, with the executive promise to implement them with effect from the payment of April salaries.

It was equally agreed that failure on the part of government to honour its promise should lead to a resumption of the suspended withdrawal of services by the doctors. Now, April salaries have just been paid and the approval and promise made by the government are conspicuously missing.


For the Enugu State government to continue to play with the welfare of doctors under its employ is inhuman, to say the least. This is more so now that the COVID--19 pandemic has made their job ten times riskier than it normally was.


And, at a time, doctors all over Nigeria, and the rest of the world, are being consoled with financial compensation for the extra risk posed by the Coronavirus scourge.


The Resident Doctors at Parklane are not inferior to their colleagues in other but similar institutions.

Therefore, the Enugu State government is duty bound to keep its promise to them and, by so doing, save the services in its only tertiary health institution from total collapse. .

After all, what is good for the can is also good for the gander. The common people in Enugu State will be bearers of the brunt, if the government allows the doctor's industrial action to linger.
*CONCERNED* *ENUGU* *CITIZEN*