Strike: FG Grants N25,000 Allowance to Doctors

Onyebuchi Ezigbo and Juliet Akoje in Abuja

In a bid to halt the ongoing nationwide strike by resident doctors, the federal government has granted approval for the payment of N25,000 peculiar allowance to medical and dental doctors in federal public hospitals and clinics in the country.
This was contained in a letter dated July 26, 2023, titled, “Accoutrement allowance for medical and dental doctors in hospitals, medical centres, and clinics in federal MDAs.”

The letter which was signed by the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Income, Salaries and Wages Commission, Ekpo Nta, read: “The federal government has approved the payment of an Accoutrement allowance of twenty-five naira (N25,000.00) per quarter to Medical and Dental Doctors in hospitals, medical centres, and clinics in the Federal Public Service. The allowance is to be paid from the overhead budget.

“The approval takes effect from June 1, 2023. All enquires relating to this circular should be directed to the Commission.”
Resident Doctors under the aegis of the Nigeria Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) had embarked on an indefinite nationwide strike on Tuesday, demanding payment of new hazard allowance, skipping allowance, immediate payment of the 2023 MRTF, immediate release of the circular on one-for-one replacement of doctors in hospitals, and Payment of skipping arrears.

Meanwhile, the Director General of the Budget Office, Ben Akabueze, yesterday, alleged that some medical doctors who have left Nigeria in search of greener pastures still have their names on the nominal rolls of hospitals in the country.
He made this known during a meeting between the House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee to address the strike action embarked on by resident doctors in the country.

Akabueze appealed to the doctors to stop holding Nigerians to ransom with industrial action, saying it was affecting Nigerians negatively.
According to him, “When you look at the nominal roll, many of the people who are said to have exited, to have “japa” are still on the nominal roll of the hospitals because…some of them are taking study leave, some of them are taking leave of absence and they remain on the nominal roll.
“Meanwhile the hospitals knows these people have ‘japad,’ they are not available, but they are still kept. That is something that perhaps at the level of Ministry of Health that makes policy to determine how we deal with these things.

“Health workers can’t simply go off on leave of absence and have his job or her job guaranteed there waiting, meanwhile there is nobody to serve the people because there is no vacancy there, they cannot replace. If we do not deal with this, even when you come to implement this, one-on-one replacement, would such people be deemed as replaceable? People who have left. And if they are replaced and tomorrow the person returns, what then happens”
The Deputy Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Hon Tanko Sununu, in his remarks at the meeting said it was important to find a solution to the incessant strike as Nigerians at the receiving end.
Sununu urged the resident doctors to be reasonable and give the government more time to address their grievances.

In his contributing, the National President of the National Association of Resident Doctors, Dr. Emeka Orji, listed issues that led to the strike to include the payment of examination and training allowances, loss of manpower, downgrading of NARD members by the National Medical Post Graduate College, non-payment of skipping arrears, arrears of minimum wage, upward review and consolidation of salary structure and that the association has been giving government warning over time to no avail.

On the issue of downgrading of membership, the Registrar of the National Post Graduate Medical College, Prof. Fatiu Arogundade, said that most of the doctors attended schools whose certificates were below standard.

Arogundade, stressed that any Nigerian doctor who presents a certificate from the West African College of Surgeons would not be treated as a doctor from the National Post Graduate Medical College.

The Chairman, Committee of Chief Medical Directors and the Chief Medical Director of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, Prof. Emem Bassey, said no medical doctor on study leave was paid salaries and that most of the time, the hospitals had to employ non regular staff to assist in the hospitals.