26 July 2023
The National Association of Resident Doctors has lamented the Federal Government’s failure to address doctors migration issue.
According to NARD President, Dr Innocent Orji, explained that the replacement of doctors that have left for greener pastures elsewhere which the government promised to quickly attend to has fells on deaf ears after signing the Memorandum of Understanding for several months.
“One of the most important requests that we made is for government to release the circular on a one-for-one replacement because our hospitals are depleting. We have been singing this like a song since last year.
“Government on its own set up a committee that came up with a guideline on how to quickly replace those who have left the system. In the MoU we signed in May, they said that on or before June that circular will be released, and our members are dying because they are overworked.
“They are breaking down; we lost a doctor last week. It has now become a weekly event that you wake up and hear that a doctor has died and it is because of stress,” Orji said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday.
The recent strike comes after the association on July 5 issued a two-week ultimatum to the Federal Government for the implementation of all its demands.
In an attempt to avert the strike, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, on Monday, held deliberations with the leadership of NARD behind closed doors.
Following the private talks, Abbas promised to meet with President Bola Tinubu to avert the industrial action of the resident doctors and announced the setup of an ad hoc committee to meet with all the stakeholders and address the matter.
The Speaker also appealed to NARD to give the house leadership a two-week period to find solutions to the issues raised.
The NARD President appreciated both the Speaker and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, for their intervention, but said the time they gave the union elapsed with no result.
“We actually appreciate the Honourable Speaker for intervening, we appreciate the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, who also called us last week and we had a discussion. They said we should give them a day or two which we did and nothing has happened,” Orji stated.
