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The National Association of Residents Doctors (NARD) Tuesday vowed that there was no going back on its ongoing nation wide strike until the Federal Government meets its demands.
The NARD Chairman, Oyo State chapter, Dr. Adedayo Williams, said this at the University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, noting that although the Federal Government has already called them for a meeting which has been slated for Wednesday, they are not going to call off the strike on a promissory note.
According to him: “Our aim was not to endanger the lives of our patients, but we don’t want government to play games with us because a frustrated doctor that will be not able to concentrate and likely not stable, is even more dangerous than a patient left uncared for.
“The principles of Medicine is: ‘you either leave the patients how they are or you do no harm’. Some of our demands were met after our last agitation, but there is need for the government to dialogue with us and sort things out,” he said.
While speaking on the level of compliance with the national strike by the Oyo doctors, Adedayo said that there was total compliance by members, “but some patients who were admitted before the strike and on critical conditions are still being attended to”.
According to him, some of the demands of the resident doctors include: “provision of genuine group life insurance and death in service benefit for all workers; immediate payment of the Medical Residency Training funding to all her members as approved in the revised 2020 budget; immediate payment of the outstanding April/May and June Covid-19 inducement allowance to all health workers; determination of the revised hazard allowance for all health workers as agreed in previous meetings with relevant stakeholders.”