Doctors at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Aro, Abeokuta, have vowed to continue with their indefinite strike action over alleged non-implementation of the Consolidated Medical Salary Scale.
The doctors, under the aegis of the Association of Resident Doctors, said their strike was to protest the continued payment of half salaries by the hospital management in defiance of a directive by the Minister of Health, Prof Isaac Adewole.
ARD President, Dr. Walter Nzeakah; the General Secretary, Dr Sewanu Awhangansi and Public Relations Officer, Dr. Mojisola Adeniji, in a joint statement, said doctors at the hospital were only getting a fraction of their salaries with the non-implementation of the policy.
The ARD berated the management of the hospital led by its Medical Director, Dr. Akinwande Akinhanmi, for “incessant failed promises”, stressing that they would sustain their strike until their demands were met.
The resident doctors explained that the strike was necessitated by the resolution of their parent body, the National Association of Resident Doctors, which, at its recent National Executive Council, mandated ARD chapters, where members were not being paid full salaries by the end of July 2016, to withdraw their services.
They noted that the directive to public health institutions to pay the CONMESS was issued by the Federal Government in December 2013 and became effective since 2014.
The doctors claimed that their colleagues at the Federal Medical Centre, Idi-Aba, Abeokuta; Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos and the University College Hospital, Ibadan, had started receiving their full CONMESS.
According to the statement, “These three hospitals alongside NPH Aro, Abeokuta were all party to the agreement brokered by a high powered group of eminent personalities in August 2015 that led to the suspension of ongoing industrial actions at the time.
”A year after and while others have complied, the management of NPH Aro, Abeokuta, has stoically refused to honour those agreements, despite clear instructions to this effect by the Ministry of Health.
“Furthermore, all other staff members in the hospital are receiving their full emoluments while doctors are only being paid fractions since 2014.
“This was what necessitated the industrial action we embarked on since Monday August 1.”
The resident doctors, however, appealed to well-meaning Nigerians to persuade the management of the hospital to honour the subsisting agreements by paying them and the medical officers in the institution their full emoluments.
The Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Akinhanmi, did not pick his calls and failed to reply text messages sent to his mobile phone.
