Resident doctors set to end strike, FG agrees to pay N4.8bn

Barring last minute changes, resident doctors are expected to sign a Memorandum of Action with the Federal Government on Saturday (today) to pay way for the end of the current industrial action by the doctors.

This follows the Federal Government’s promise on Saturday to pay N4.8bn Residency Training Fund to the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) in the next seven days.

The government also agreed to clear the arrears of the consequential adjustment of the National Minimum Wage from April when the bill was signed by President Muhammadu Buhari to December 2019.

The government, through the Federal Ministry of Health, also said it had forwarded a list from 38 hospitals to the Budget Office for inclusion in the Service Wide Vote.

The MoA has thus laid the foundation for the peaceful resolution of the industrial action by NARD which commenced on August 1, 2021.

The truce was brokered following the intervention of the leadership of the Nigerian Medical Association led by Prof Innocent Uja.

At the Friday renewed meeting, all the consolidated 12-point demand by NARD, the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) and other affiliates of NMA were resolved.

Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, said the government resumed discussions with the striking doctors at the instance of President Buhari.

Ngige was reported as saying in a statement on Saturday by the Deputy Director of Press and Public Relations, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Charles Akpan, that the President directed him to side step every technicality and re-commence conciliation, especially in the background of the alternative dispute resolution window, provided by the National Industrial Court, where the matter was referred to under the instrument of article 17 of the Trade Disputes Act.

He said, “The National Industrial Court in its wisdom advised that NARD should keep talking with its employers. So we are tapping into this widow of an alternative dispute resolution to ameliorate this situation that is already bad.”