NMA Strike: Federal Government Sacks Resident Doctors

Government revealed this in a statement signed by Deputy Director of Press, Federal Ministry of Health, Mr. Isiaka Yusuf.

According to him, the Federal Government has decided that Residency Training be suspended pending the conclusion of the ongoing appraisal of the challenges in the health sector.

The statement said that the directive is without prejudice to any emergency measure that may be necessary for the hospital management to immediately restore full medical services.
The Federal Government noted that the strike by members of the NMA has resulted in untold hardship on innocent members of the society who were in need of medical care.

“The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) made good its threat of 11th June 2014 by calling out its members on an industrial strike action on the 1st of July despite the Federal Government’s successive intervention meetings and dialogue including extensive deliberations with the leadership of the NMA on 25th and 26th June 2014, where agreements were reached on each of the 24 demands and an MoU was signed by both parties”.

“In the midst of the strike action, the Federal Government had also cultivated the attention and intervention of some eminent personalities in order to prevail on the NMA leadership to respect the ethics of their profession and end the strike whilst the dialogue is ongoing”, the statement added.

The Ministry of Health noted that the Federal Government has implemented more than 90 per cent of its responsibilities as signed by both parties, and that at the conclusion of each meeting, the NMA promised to call off the strike but would return another day to say that it could not.

“For the whole of July 2014, these doctors did not work yet government, owing to the emergency situation in our country, paid them the July salaries with allowances such as call duty allowance, teaching allowance, hazard allowance, etc, believing that this magnanimity of government would appeal to reason for NMA to call off the strike”, the statement added, stressing that the strike is one of the most insensitive steps to be taken by any association or a labour union in the history of this country.

”Following the Presidential declaration of a National Public Health Emergency on Ebola Disease which has united the entire country in the efforts to contain the disease, it is quite regrettable that the people who should take leadership role in the fight against Ebola disease are now the most unsupportive. All efforts by Government to contain this disease are being frustrated by the continued industrial strike action of the NMA”, it said.