The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Government in an effort to end the ongoing strike.
NARD commenced a five-day warning strike on May 17 to press home its demands after a 14-day ultimatum to the government lapsed.
The doctors are demanding an immediate increment in the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure to the tune of 200 per cent of their current gross salaries.
They also want massive recruitment of clinical staff in hospitals and an immediate withdrawal of the bill seeking to compel medical and dental graduates to render five-year compulsory services in Nigeria before being granted full licences to practice, among others. The doctors on Friday met with the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Health and the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, to deliberate on their demands.
According to NARD, its National Executive Council will decide on the timelines set in the content of the MoU.
Speaking with our correspondent on Saturday, the NARD President, Dr Emeka Orji, said, “We have heard the position of the government and we have told them the position of NARD, and we discussed. They told us what they can do and what they cannot do, and why they can’t do those things with timelines, and we signed.
“So, we will take back what the government offered to the NEC to accept or reject it and give further directives. Part of the MoU is that NARD will call its NEC in the next 48 hours and brief them on the outcome for them to decide.”
Meanwhile, the strike, which commenced on Wednesday, continued on Saturday, with medical services hampered in federal hospitals across the country, with hospitals having to make adjustments to their schedules to accommodate as many patients as possible.
A News Agency of Nigeria correspondent, who visited Federal Medical Centre, Jabi, Abuja, found that patients were still being attended to.
Nurses were seen at their duty posts, while the various departments were also attending to patients as best as they could.
Speaking about the measures employed to cushion the effect of the absence of the resident doctors, the Head of Clinical Services, FMC, Jabi, Dr Joseph Eziechila, said though service delivery was not as it should be, the hospital would not shut down.
He added that the management had to think out of the box to keep the facility running.
Eziechila stated, “We had to think out of the box on how to maintain services. Resident doctors are the bedrock of healthcare delivery because they are more in number.
“Here, we have close to 100 consultants, but the resident doctors, youth corps members and others will number like 350; so, they are the main workforce.
“When patients visit the hospital, they are the first point of contact before you call the consultants if there are issues.
“However, what we did in this case is that we have some youth corps doctors and we still have a few locum doctors; we have house officers who are not part of the strike, and we have principal medical officers.
“So, as much as we can, we try to make use of these people to keep services and the emergencies running, as well as some other points of service delivery so that the hospital is not completely shut down.”
He said that the situation had caused the consultants to do some extra work.
Eziechila added, “Though it is a short strike, we have to mobilise all the consultants. In the outpatient clinic, we have to mobilise all the consultants to work outside their normal schedule.
“If you get there now, we have like four of the consultants at the same time; the consultants running specialist clinics also run their clinics on their own.
“Where it becomes a problem is if the strike is prolonged; but I had to call a meeting with the departments to appeal to them to go the extra mile for this very short time.”
Ezeichila, however, said that the hospital did not have an influx of patients as before, adding that news of the strike automatically reduced the high rate of hospital visits by patients.
A visit to Maitama District Hospital, Abuja, also revealed that patients were being attended to.
The number of patients has, however, reduced as only a handful was seen accessing care.
Some of the patients, who spoke to NAN on condition of anonymity, said they were surprised that doctors were on the ground to attend to them.
One of them also told NAN that the absence of patients in the hospital made services faster than usual.
‘200% increase justified’
Meanwhile, the NARD President has said the 200 per cent salary increase being demanded by resident doctors is not outrageous.
“Even with what Nigeria is getting now in form of revenue, the government should be able to improve this significantly and that was why we pegged it at 200 per cent increment in the CONMESS (Consolidated Medical Salary Structure),” he said.
While justifying the demand, especially with the government’s complaint that it had no money, Orji stated, “We are scientists and we do not base our discussion on rumours. We have said that for you to take us back to where we were in 2009, our studies have shown that taking into consideration the cost of living in 2009, the fuel price, the inflation rate and the exchange rate, it has to be increased to a minimum of 270 per cent.
“So, we are being considerate by bringing it down to 200 per cent. What you do during negotiations is that you present your facts, the government will present theirs and you will discuss. The government can come up with their data showing that they need to increase by a percentage different from ours and when we are convinced, then we will take it back to our members and we will discuss.”
