By Leshi Adebayo
The Forum of Chairmen of Health Institutions in Nigeria has described the ongoing strike by the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors as insensitive.
According to The PUNCH, the body stated this during a meeting with Dr. Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment in Abuja.
Dr Sam Jaja, Chairman of FCHIN, who led the delegation, said the forum chose a four-pronged approach to resolve the dispute and frowned at the frequent resort to strike by doctors.
The FCHIN further said that in consideration of its findings, the Federal Government has substantially met the demands of doctors, as well as taking steps to reposition the health sector. Hence, the strike did not speak well of the profession whose practitioners swore an oath to save lives.
This was contained in a statement on Saturday by the ministry of labour and employment’s spokesman, Charles Akpan.
In the statement, Jaja was quoted to have said that strike should be the last resort after every other avenues had been exhausted.
In response to this, Ngige said the government has adopted a holistic approach to tackling the challenges in the health sector, noting that some of the issues in contention cut across sectors.
He added that the government bent backward to improve the ease of the practice of medicine in the country despite dwindling resources.
The labour minister described the industrial action as unjustifiable and unwarranted, noting that the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on August 21 with doctors was on course.
Ngige said all the issues contained in the MOU, ranging from arrears of the consequential adjustment of the National Minimum Wage, Skipping Allowance, Bench fees among others have successfully been tackled at the meeting of 20 and 21 August.
He said, “That section 43 of the Trade Dispute Act should not apply to them. That we should insert in a Government agreement, that they should be paid for the period they are not at work. I’m being careful about this. This is the law and I will not lend myself to illegality, to state in the agreement that a group of Nigerians are above the law.”
Source: The Punch[tps_footer][/tps_footer][tps_footer][/tps_footer]
