The Kaduna chapter of Association of Resident Doctors, ARD, has commenced an indefinite strike beginning from Wednesday.
The president of ARD, Dr Emmanuel Joseph said this in a statement made available to News Agency of Nigeria in Kaduna.
He said the strike was necessitated by the state government’s failure to honour an agreement it had with the association bordering on salary adjustments and tackling some challenges in the health sector.
“So, we were compelled to take this sad step.
“As a sign of good faith, we will continue to manage the patients in the infectious Diseases Control Centre being currently managed for lassa fever till patients fully recover,” he said.
He said the doctors would not accept new patients in any public health facility and were currently discharging or referring patients on admission, “as we cannot fully manage them,” he said.
News Agency of Nigeria recalls that since October 2017, the government and the ARD had mutually agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, in a meeting brokered by NMA, with timeline of implementation.
According to him, the ARD had kept its own part of the bargain while the government was yet to do so despite reminders and lobbying by the association.
According to him, the association also met with government on November 25, 2019 and agreed to give it three months to implement the agreement, but also failed to do so.
“The government team again went to sleep until we were forced to give further reminder of our looming deadline,” he said.
According to him, the government responded by setting up a committee on February 27, 2020, and the association honoured the committee chairman’s verbal demand for extension to March 3, 2020.
The state ARD leader said the doctors had no option than to proceed on strike after the government again failed to respond to its demands at the end of the March 3 deadline.
NAN
