Buhari to doctors: Strike not best action to take now
FG to pay doctors after verification Hold FG, states responsible for strike – doctors
President Muhammadu Buhari has told striking medical doctors that embarking on strike is not the best action at this time they are mostly needed by Nigerians. But elsewhere in Abuja, the National Association of Government General Medical and Dental Practitioners (NAGGMDP) has asked Nigerians to hold the federal and state governments responsible for the ongoing National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) strike.
The president, who called on health workers to return to their duty posts, urged others contemplating strikes to opt for negotiation, no matter how long it takes.
“The lives of citizens that could be lost or damaged when doctors withdraw services are
precious enough to be worth opting for peaceful resolution of differences,’ he said.
The president spoke yesterday at the State House, Abuja, while receiving members of Nigeria Medical Association (NMA).
He assured them that all outstanding benefits owed medical doctors would be cleared after verifications.
“Protecting our citizens is not to be left to government alone, but taken as a collective responsibility, in which especially medical professionals play a critical role. Let me speak directly to the striking doctors. Embarking on industrial action at this time when Nigerians need you most is not the best action to take, no matter the grievances.
“This Administration has a good track record of paying all debts owed to government workers, pensioners and contractors and we have even revisited debts left by past administrations. Once due verification is done, debts genuinely owed health workers will be settled.”
President Buhari said Nigeria’s source of revenue over many years was dwindling, with a rising population despite recent improvement in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“The source of revenue that Nigeria has depended on for so long experienced global decline, our population is rising fast and the tension arising from both is fuelling agitation among our youth. Organizations like the NMA could play a very useful moderating role in society,” the president said.
President of the NMA, Prof. Innocent A. Ujah, said the association was concerned with the industrial action embarked upon by doctors and had been doing its best to alleviate the suffering of patients across the country, while appealing for an urgent resolution.
But speaking during the association's maiden scientific conference and inaugural meeting yesterday, the national president of NAGGMDP, Noel Dokun, said government at all levels had neglected the health sector.
He also said the Nigerian Governors' Forum (NGF) was not doing enough to save the health sector from collapse.
While lamenting that doctors were suffering, and facing untold hardships, he said government was dishing out propaganda to turn citizens against doctors.
Dokun said, “Government needs to reawaken to its responsibility to know that healthcare is a social service and the right of every Nigerian. On the strike, there have always been alternatives. But the fact is that the alternatives have not in most cases yielded any result and that is what always lead to strike.
“Health workers are under paid, facilities are decaying and they are not doing anything but they want doctors to keep on going to work without being able to try our hand on anything. People will be suffering and they will be telling doctors to do something while the government keeps looking.”
Chairman, Local Organising Committee of the conference, Dr. Isaac Akerele, advised doctors to seek entrepreneurship as an alternative source of income rather than focusing and fighting for increment in remuneration.