Breaking: Doctors suspend strike, resume work Monday

Doctors have suspended a nationwide strike they started 55 days ago, citing the “aspirations, disease burden and sufferings of the Nigerian people.” Nigerian Medical Association said Sunday its members will resume duty at 8am Monday morning in public hospitals where they left work since July 1, but they will “remain calm while negotiations continue,” said […]

Doctors have suspended a nationwide strike they started 55 days ago, citing the “aspirations, disease burden and sufferings of the Nigerian people.”

Nigerian Medical Association said Sunday its members will resume duty at 8am Monday morning in public hospitals where they left work since July 1, but they will “remain calm while negotiations continue,” said the association’s president Dr Kayode Obembe.

The association also demands government to withdraw its suspension of the government -funded training programme for resident doctors.

The suspension of the programme last week in wake of government frustration over prolonged strike by doctors in the face of the onslaught of Ebola virus disease amounted to the the purported sack of some 16,000 doctors–an estimated 70% of the entire doctor workforce in the country.

NMA asked that the doctors be “reinstated without punitive measures.”

Its suspension of the 55-day-old strike comes after it secured a handful of guarantees among 24 demands it put before government in June.

Among them, government conceded “only doctors whose degrees are registerable with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria” can get the title of “consultant,” said Obembe.

NMA has been set against addressing health workers other than doctors by the title of “consultant” in a hospital setting, insisting only medical staff in charge of patients reserve the title.

Government has also reinstated the position of DCMAC–deputy chairman, medical advisory committee–in federal hospitals, a position nonmedical workersin hospitals have been set against.

In addition, NMA got guarantees no effort will be made to repeal the established position of chief medical director, reserved for doctors, the association said.

It said federal governemnt agreed to pay a backlog of arrears owed doctors on account of relativity with other health workers, starting with two months of arrears, in efforts to “address injustice that’s been on for 22 years,” said Obembe.

NMA said it got assurance government would review hazard alliance for doctors in the wake of Ebola, which has infected more health workers than other Nigerians.

The review could see hazard allowance, currently at N5,000 a month, rise to 20% of a doctor’s salary, NMA said.