The Federal Medical Centre, Jabi, Abuja said it drafted locum doctors, serving youth corps doctors and house officers to offset shortage of manpower caused by the ongoing strike by the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD).
The hospital’s Head of Clinical Services, Dr Joseph Eziechila, said they had to take the measure to avoid shutdown so as to continue to attend to patients.He said: “We had to think out of the box on how to maintain services Resident doctors are the bedrock of healthcare delivery because they are more in number.
“What we did in this case is that we have some youth corps doctors and we still have a few locum doctors, we have house officers that are not part of the strike and we have principal medical officers.
“So, as much as we can, we try to make use of these people to keep services, the emergencies running and some other points of service delivery so that the hospital is not completely shut down.”
NARD served a letter of warning strike to the Federal government on Tuesday, saying it could not guarantee further industrial harmony should the government fail to address issues raised before May 29.In the letter, the association issued a two-week ultimatum to the federal government to resolve issues as contained in the ultimatum before its expiration on May 13.
The doctors are demanding an immediate increment in the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure to the tune of 200 per cent of current gross salaries of doctors. NARD is also demanding the immediate withdrawal of the Bill seeking to compel medical and dental graduates to serve compulsorily in Nigeria for five years before getting full licence to practise.
Meanwhile NARD president, Dr. Emeka Orji, has disclosed that the body has met with the Minister of Labour and Employment Chris Ngige. He said: “We went to the meeting called by the Minister of Labour and Employment,Dr. Chris Ngige, where we took the demands that NARD made one after the other.
“Explanations were offered to some of the issues, while for others, we got responses which we intend to pass across to our members for final ratification.
“We signed an MoU with the government. I can confirm that many of the things we raised there were discussed, and timelines given for the implementation, with dates for some of the points we raised.
“We will take the MoU back to our members to analyze, and then accept what the government has offered or reject it. This will happen in the next 48 hours. The National Executive Council (NEC) of the NARD will review the content of the MoU with a view of suspending the strike.”
