Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, and other senior government officials, on Tuesday, held a meeting with the leadership of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors over the doctors’ planned nationwide strike.
NARD President, Dr. Muhammad Suleiman, led the doctors to the Presidential Villa.
The meeting at the Presidential Villa followed a threat by the doctors to embark on an indefinite nationwide strike from August 10 if the Federal Government failed to address outstanding salary arrears and other welfare-related issues.
The doctors had announced the planned industrial action in a communiqué issued after their National Executive Council meeting in Gombe.
Apart from the Chief of Staff, the Ministers of Labour, Health and Finance were present at the meeting.
Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation and the Accountant-General of the Federation also attended the meeting.
Addressing State House correspondents after the meeting, Dr. Suleiman said the association had secured commitments on nearly all the issues it raised, adding that NARD and the Federal Government agreed on timelines for resolving outstanding salary, promotion and allowance matters that prompted the strike notice.
“Today, I can tell you that our matters are resolved,” he said.
On whether the planned strike had been formally called off, Suleiman said, “I can’t stand here and tell you I have called off a strike. What I’ll do, I have the utmost confidence that what he (Chief of Staff) has done today has moved the needle to a very large extent to have solved our matters, and we’ll wait for more.”
He said he would have to report the outcome of the meeting to NARD’s National Executive Council before a final decision could be taken.
“I have National Executive Council members. I have to report all of this back. We sit down. We take a decision. The point is, the person that called us for this conversation has never failed resident doctors. That is what I am emphasising,” he said.
According to him, “This is not the first time the Chief of Staff has intervened in matters relating to resident doctors in this country. About six or seven years ago, when he became Speaker, it was the first opportunity he had to intervene, and he has always intervened. Whenever he came into our issues, our matters were solved.”
The NARD president said timelines had been agreed upon with various government agencies for the implementation of some of the resolutions reached at the meeting.
“We are talking about the meal issue at LUTH, we are talking about a week for implementation. We have agreed on a figure. We have agreed on numbers,” he said.
He also disclosed that the association raised concerns over what it described as an escalating pattern of violence against health workers, saying 31 doctors and more than 20 other health workers had been assaulted in the past 10 months.
“Today we have agreed. The Ministry of Health is going to release directives to their hospitals to beef up security and create safe spaces. The Ministry of Health is going to engage the public in public education for health workers not to be assaulted,” NARD president said.
