The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors on Tuesday embarked on a nationwide strike citing the inability of relevant government authorities to meet their demands.
At the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, in Abia State, services were going on skeletally due to the strike action by resident doctors.
According to the President of the Association at the Federal Medical Centre Umuahia, Dr Emeka Onuh, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that the demands of workers are met and a failure to do that is what has resulted in the strike action.
He hinted that arrears of allowances owed to them have forced them to down tools with the hope that government would relent and do the needful by paying up especially arrears of hazard allowances.
“We still have the issue of hazard allowances which we have been hampering on all these months. The payment for the month of April and May, only a few were able to receive it while others are still waiting, not to mention that of June,” Onuh said.
“Also, the issue of Personal Protective Equipment for our members and health workers who are in the frontline is still not adequate irrespective of what government is saying, and the situation of our colleagues in state teaching hospitals, what they are going home with is not commemorating with their status and level of work they put in so, one of the demands of the National body is for the state government to do the needful by paying them at least what is equal to what the Federal Government is paying.
“This is second year running, and the promise we had even before we embarked on the first strike is that all the demands have been captured in the 2020 revised budget, but as I speak to you, nothing has been implemented”.