UniAbuja MDCAN holds annual general meeting

The chairman of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital branch of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), Dr. Bob Ukonu, said medical doctors are living in a dynamic environment hence the need to equip them with relevant information which will help them to take informed decisions. He stated this on Wednesday in his welcome address at the 2016, annual general meeting of the association.

He said after deliberations by the executives of the association, the local organizing committee decided to deliberate on labour relations and industrial harmony.

Ukonu, thanked the hospital community for the support given to the executives of the association.

“It has been a fruitful year despite a moment of obstruction of service which I sincerely hope at the end of this discussion will be reduced to its barest minimum,” he also said.

The immediate past director of administration of the hospital, Alhaji Musa Abdullahi, who presented a five-page paper with the topic ‘Labour Relations and Industrial Harmony in the Health Sector’, attributed weak structures in the Ministry of Health among factors behind industrial instability in the country.

He added that the lax government attitude towards the policy of no work, no pay, especially strikes, which he said was provided in law, and “inordinate industrial militancy of the resident doctors who are oblivious of their basic status as trainees is also responsible for the industrial disharmony.”

According to him, some of the measures to check the trend of industrial instability include, the need for government to consider the report of the presidential committee on industrial harmony in the health sector among others.