Resident doctors threaten strike action over salary shortfalls, arrears

Titus Akhigbe, Benin

The National Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria (NARD) has threatened to embark on industrial action if all outstanding salary shortfalls and arrears are not paid within 40 days.

In a communique issued at the end of the 39th ordinary general meeting of the association at the weekend and signed by the President, Dr. Olusegun Olaopa and Secretary General, Dr. Anthony Use respectively, the NARD decried the non-employment of resident doctors to meet the required capacity to meet service demands with attendant job stress and burn-out.

As part of its resolutions, the association stated that “all outstanding salary shortfalls and arrears should be paid within the next 40 days, otherwise we will not guarantee industrial harmony.

“The federal government through the ministry of health and relevant government organs should mandate and supervise the employment of resident doctors to fill the vacancies within training institutions.

“All doctors who suffered same scale promotion should be immediately placed on their appropriate grade level and paid salary arrears due them.

“The state government should look into the state tertiary health institutions and immediately halt the decay to help provide access to quality healthcare to its citizenry.

“The government through the ministry of health and relevant agencies make budgetary allocations to fund the residency training program as stipulated in the residency training act.”

The association also observed that “NARD decried the non-payment of our outstanding salary shortfalls despite the memorandum of terms of settlement signed with the government since September 2017,” adding that “we also noticed the non-capturing of budgetary allocations for funding of the residency training programme in line with extant Act.”