Consultant doctors and relevant National Youth Service Corps members have been mobilised to work in various government hospitals and fill vacant positions left behind by the resident doctors currently on strike, Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, has said.

He stated this during a media briefing in Abuja on Thursday, stressing that it was a wrong time for doctors to embark on strike.

He said, “During this strike, we have mobilised all consultants and youth corpers and all those who render services to ensure they are rendering service, to ensure that the hospital services do not collapse and everybody is doing very well,” the minister added.

“I salute the consultants and youth corpers and all those who are not on strike, who are giving service and also the private sector who are supporting us. The private sector is rising up to the challenge to make sure that health services, one way or the order, are going on and there is not serious distress in the hospitals.”

The resident doctors embarked on a nationwide strike on August 2, citing irregular payment of salaries, hazard allowances, among other issues.

The minister also said, “Although the resident doctors have gone on strike, and as I said before, we are appealing to them not to use this very vulnerable period when the country is facing a war.

“For those of you who have been very keenly following international news, you know the havoc that the Delta variant did in India, and what it has done and it is doing in Indonesia, Ireland, and other countries.

“We have only one or two percent of eligible Nigerians vaccinated. So we are really facing something like a war. When you face a war, it is not the time that soldiers say they are not going to fight.”

He called on the striking doctors to call off the strike, assuring them that the government was working to meet their demands.

“We don’t want to see here what happened in India where they also lost 400,000 lives due to COVID-19 Delta strain. We don’t want that,” he said.

He called on the striking doctors to join forces with the government to “face this common enemy”.

Speaking on the ‘no-work, no-pay’ directive issued in the wake of the strike, Ehanire said it was not to threaten the doctors, but an international practice.

“Nobody is threatening anybody with anything. That is a standard thing, that is the International Labour Organisation (ILO) recommendation that if you didn’t work why will you get paid,” he said.

“Your salary comes from taxpayers’ money. So, if you didn’t work why should you go and be saying you should be paid because if that is so, you can be encouraged to stay home for up to six months and your salary is running from public funds and you have not given the community any service.”