By Gabriel Atumeyi
The Federal Government has asked the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) to consider the plight of the 80 percent of the citizenry in need of healthcare and shelve its planned nationwide strike.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, made the appeal during a conciliatory meeting with the leadership of NARD in Abuja.
According to the minister, the impact of COVID-19 on the nation’s health care system has left Nigeria in a bad place.
Dr. Ngige said the federal government had started discussions on hazard health allowance for health workers in the country.
“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 government side will be implementing and marking them as they execute them,” he said.
“I’ve 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 same page.
“We had to intervene to ensure industrial peace in the health industry. We’re also in a very bad period health wise the world over, and Nigeria is not an exception. So, we’ve 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’ve to look at the issues that way and see how we can get the best out of this situation.”
Also speaking, NARD President, Dr Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi. said his association looked forward to seeing all issues and grievances resolved.