The National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has suspended the nationwide strike embarked upon on the 7th of September, 2020.
The announcement was made on Thursday by the association’s President, Dr Aliyu Sokomba. According to him, the suspension of the industrial action is to allow the Federal Government address its demands.
In his words, “following our meeting yesterday (Wednesday) with the government, we had a National Executive Council meeting and resolved to once again suspend our strike to allow government time to address our demands.
“So the strike is suspended to be reviewed in two-weeks time.”
On Tuesday, the Federal Government set a two-week timeline for the payment of the N4 billion Medical Residency Training for the 2020 batch of resident doctors. A memorandum of understanding was subsequently signed by all stakeholders.
Ahmed Idris, the Accountant General of the Federation was given a mandate to immediately commence payment of the accrued allowances to the doctors. It is hoped that the move would set the atmosphere for a call-off of the strike.
Dr Chris Ngige, Minister of labour read the outcome of the meeting held on Wednesday. According to him, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved an additional N8.9 billion Naira to boost the payment of the allowances.
Ngige said that that the government will soon kick-start the review of a permanent hazard allowance for all health workers after deliberations with concerned parties.
According to Ngige, “we noted that the 2020 Appropriation Act was revised due to #COVID19 pandemic, the N4 billion appropriated for Residency Training under a wrong heading for Medical Residency Training is to to be fired before expenditure.