Ikenna Atanah
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, has passionately appealed to Resident Doctors to shelve their threat of embarking on a nationwide strike.
The Minister made the appeal at a conciliatory meeting with the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) on Wednesday, March 31, in Abuja.
Ngige said that majority of the welfare issues under contention were almost resolved even before the letter of complaint and notification of planned strike action was delivered at the ministry
”We are here because we have started solving your issues. We put up proposals with given timelines; on how to deal with them.
“We will look at those proposals with you; fix adequate timelines so that the people on the government side will be implementing and marking them; as they execute them.
“I have held informal meetings with the finance ministry; and they told me they have started solving some of the problems.
“The two committees in the National Assembly have also tried to get you and your employers on the same page.
”We have to intervene to ensure industrial peace in the health industry. We are also in a very bad period health-wise the world over; and Nigeria is not an exception.
“So, we have to think about the generality of Nigerians. Because right now, 80 per cent of Nigerians are our patients because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“So we have to look at the issues that way; and see how we can get the best out of this situation,” he said.
Ngige, therefore, called on the Resident Doctors to consider the plight of the 80 per cent of the citizenry in need of healthcare services, should they withdraw their services.
He said that as a conciliator, the complaint had been adequately communicated with the relevant ministries, adding that several meetings were ongoing and proposals drawn to address the situation.
Oriental News Nigeria, reports that NARD had threatened to shut public health care facilities beginning from April 1, over unpaid salaries and other welfare packages.
