‘Why government sacked striking resident doctors’
Nigeria’s Minister of Health Isaac Folorunso Adewole . REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde – RTX231AG
•Orders immediate replacement
More reasons are emerging why the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, directed Chief Medical Directors and Medical Directors of federal tertiary hospitals to fill the vacancies created by resident doctors who have “abandoned” their training programme by refusing to report for work.
The Guardian reliably gathered that the Minister of Health was angered by the attitude of the President of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), Dr. Mohammad Askira, who called for a nationwide strike despite ongoing talks with government.
It was learnt that Askira was rude to the minister and refused to listen to pleas from senior colleagues.
The directive to sack the resident doctors was contained in a circular dated 21st June, 2016, titled “Re: Residency Training Programme” and signed by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Health, Amina Shamaki, and sent to medical directors of hospitals.
The circular, which was made available to The Guardian noted: “It has come to the notice of the Management of the Ministry that some Resident Doctors in your establishment have voluntarily withdrawn from the Residency Training Programme by refusing to report for training without authorisation. Public Service Rule, PSR 030402 (e) is relevant. This is in spite of the ongoing negotiations on their demands put forward by the representatives of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) under the auspices of the Nigerian Medical Association.
“In view of this development, you are hereby directed to replace all the doctors that have withdrawn their services, with others from the pool of applicants for the training programmes in the various disciplines in order not to create ominous gap in training with attendant disruption of health care delivery in your facility.
“Meanwhile, the ministry is working with the panel on the review of the Residency Training Programme in Nigeria, led by Professor Wole Atoyebi, the Registrar of the National Postgraduate Medical College, to fast-track the development of a comprehensive blueprint for postgraduate training of doctors in the country.”
“Please, ensure immediate compliance,” the statement read in part.
Earlier, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, had urged the doctors and other stakeholders in the health sector to demonstrate the spirit of leadership by focusing on how to come up with lasting solutions to the issues that precipitated the industrial action.
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3 Comments
Good move, doctors are fond of violating Labour laws as if it is not relevant to them. All State Governments should take a cue from this. It is improper for any group of workers to embark on strike without being ready to dialogue on the issue that is causing their agitations. Doctors should also learn to respect constituted authorities, the fact that they deal with human lives is the more reason for them to be level headed while channeling their grievances to constituted authorities and their representatives. The arrogance being exhibited by their representatives at negotiations meetings can be infuriating at times, as if the other representatives didn’t go to school at all. Rather than be patient and listen to their point of view, they are never ready for dialogue but to impose their wish on the other team. It is high time they change and learn to elect level headed individuals as leaders and representatives. Not haughty and arrogant members whom they see as radicals among them. Resident doctors are the most guilty of these behaviour and they should try and change.
n i guess u will go abroad for ur medical needs. hope u hv made same provision for all 170m nigerians. u politicians r a joke.
so…guardian newspaper you have made me write this my epistle comment twice…..what gives?
Dear Isaac Adewole you have sacked all the doctors who went on strike because they “were yet to be paid their salaries; skipping and all accrued arrears for
doctors yet to be implemented in most hospitals in the country; unpaid
December salaries of doctors in some federal hospitals, and, house
officers’ entry steps have not been effected”.
so you want these doctors to come to work hungry or distracted with their minds thinking of how to pay their children’s school fees or their house rents or even worse their parent’s hospital bills? so Mr minister of health you want these types of doctors to attend to me when i go to the government hospitals. No wonder medical officials are very abrasive and nonchalant in public hospitals.
Why does the Nigerian government treat medical officials like road side sweeper employees or don’t you know that these people spent millions of naira and many sleepless nights to attain the skills they have now. i repeat MILLIONS OF NAIRA USED TO BECOME A DOCTOR.
And somebody is here talking about respecting the constituted authorities when I am hungry. There is nothing to dialogue here just fulfill you own end of the bargain and the doctors will do their part After spending over 7 years in tertiary education to gain knowledge that can literally save lives why should doctors not be arrogant? Your life is in their hands if not go to your babalawo to cure you. These people are in constant pressure to make the right decision about every diagnosis they perform that they do not have the …..time to be analyzing if their December salary has been paid in February as promised or not!
Doctors everywhere in the world have to continually gain knowledge outside school by constantly reading medical research articles, subscribing to medical journals and gaining membership to world recognized medical association and how will Nigerian doctors be able to do that when they can not even get their common salaries on their due dates talkless of getting rembursed for all these CPD’s (Continuing Professional Development). Doctors are not some civil servant who can run out of work by 3pm or disappear for over a week without no repercussion to tend to their ‘supermarket’ side job. they sacrifice their family lives, their friends and even their religion for their jobs and on top of that you want them to sacrifice their salaries and dues?!!!….hell no!
So Mr minister of health after you sack all these experienced doctors and then go ahead to mass employ green doctors (who will experiment on so many ignorant patients without any mentors to guide them) and then 6 months down the line these new doctors go on strike again because you have not met your own end of the bargain what will you do? sack them again?
haha you people in the government are a big joke.
We will review and take appropriate action.