•FG opposes bill to halt medical doctors’ migration 

•Says planned industrial action by doctors unnecessary 

•Approves universal implementation of employee compensation act

Deji Elumoye and Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

Resident Doctors under the auspices of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) have resolved to commenced a five-day warning strike to compel the federal government to attend its demands.

This was just as the Federal Executive Council (FEC) rose from its extraordinary meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, yesterday, with an objection to the private member bill before the National Assembly seeking to control the migration of medical doctors for greener pastures abroad.

Addressing newsmen after the FEC meeting at the State House, Abuja, Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, while commenting on the threat by doctors to go on a warning strike tomorrow, said the warning strike by the doctors was not necessary since government was already engaged with the NMA, their umbrella body.

At the end of the virtual NEC meeting held on Monday, NARD resolved to embark on a 5-day warning strike starting from Wednesday morning.

It said the warning strike would commence by midnight, 12 am Wednesday and end on Monday next week.

Although, the association was yet to formally issue its communiqué from the NEC meeting,

It said the Communiqué would be ready today, and that a notice of strike would be sent to the Federal Ministries of Health and Labour and Employment as required by the Trade Dispute law.

While confirming the doctors action, the immediate past President of NARD, Dr. Godiya Ishaya, said the decision was part of the resolutions reached at the NEC meeting of the association that ended Monday evening.

Resident Doctors had given the federal government a two-week ultimatum on April 29, to attend their demands.

However, NARD expressed sadness that the ultimatum ended on Saturday, May 13, without any move by government to respond to their grievances or reach out to them for talks.

The resident doctors had at the NEC meeting held on April 29, in Abeokuta, Ogun state capital, demanded an immediate increment in the CONMESS salary structure to the tune of 200 percent of the current gross salary of Doctors in addition to other new allowances.

In the resolution, jointly signed by NARD president Dr. Emeka Innocent Orji and Secretary General, Dr. Chikezie Kelechi, the doctors also demanded immediate withdrawal and jettisoning of the ill-conceived bill by Hon. Ganiyu Johnson proposing restrictions on young doctors seeking to ply their trade outside the country.

NARD further demanded immediate payment of the 2023 Medical Residency Training Fund (MRTF) in line with the agreements reached at the stakeholders’ meeting convened by the Federal Ministry of Health at the Honourable Minister of State for Health’s conference room.

The doctors urged the government to commence of payment of all salary arrears owed to its members including 2014, 2015, and 2016 salary arrears as well as areas of the consequential adjustment of the minimum wage.

In addition, the resident doctors demanded immediate massive recruitment of clinical staff in the hospitals and complete abolishment of bureaucratic limitations to the immediate replacement of doctors who leave the system.

In the same vein, NARD demanded immediate infrastructural development in the various hospitals without  further delay and insists on at least 15 percent budgetary allocation to health subsequently

FG Opposes Bill to Halt Medical Doctors Migration

Meanwhile, FEC rose from its extraordinary meeting presided over by Osinbajo with an objection to the private member bill before the National Assembly seeking to control the migration of  medical doctors for greener pastures abroad.

Addressing newsmen after the meeting, Ngige said the bill which had passed second reading at the House of Representatives was against extant Labour laws.

The sponsor of the bill in the House of Representatives, Hon Ganiyu Johnson, representing Lagos State, had explained that the move was to check the mass exodus of medical professionals from the country.

The legislation was titled:  “A Bill for an Act to amend the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act, Cap. M379, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 to mandate any Nigeria-trained medical or dental practitioner to practise in Nigeria for a minimum of five years before being granted a full licence by the council to make quality health services available to Nigeria; and for related matters.”

Following the introduction of the bill, NARD had vowed that it would resist any attempt to enslave Nigerian medical doctors under any guise.

Responding to the bill before the legislative arm, Ngige declared: “Nobody can say they (doctors) will not get a practising licence till after five years. It will run counter to the laws of the land that have established the progression in the practice of medicine.

“I am a medical doctor. When you graduate from the medical school, you go on one-year apprenticeship called housemanship or internship as the case maybe. After your internship, you are now given a full licence because prior to that, what you have is a provisional licence of registration with the Nigerian Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN).

“So, after that intensive training, you were signed off by consultants and you became a fully qualified medical doctor to attend to human beings and to work without any supervision again. Supervision then is voluntary.

“Resident Doctors are those who have that full licence and they want to acquire post graduate speciality and speciality is known like surgeon, gynecologists, obstetrics, paediatrics and internal medicine of family medicine. So, they are doctors in training.

“The Bill in National Assembly cannot stop anybody from getting a full licence. That bill is a private members bill.

“In the National Assembly they attend to private members bills and executive bills. Executive bills emanate from the government into the National Assembly with a stamp of the executive.

“It is either sent by the Attorney General of the Federation or by the President but usually from the Attorney General of the Federation. So, it’s not an executive bill, it’s a private members bill.

“That bill is moved by the man from Lagos. So, members of his constituency can tell him this is worrying us. Can’t we check these doctors this way by you going to speak than put up a document?

“That document is as far as I am concerned not workable. Ab initio, I don’t support it and I will never support it. Like I said before, it is like killing a fly with a sledge hammer.

“They should think of other ways if they are trying to check brain drain, there should be other ways.

“If a doctor has read on scholarship, you bond him, if a doctor has read on bursary you can bond him. If a doctor is trained like we are doing now on little or nothing which is like scholarship again because N50,000 a session per medical student is nothing when their counterparts oversees pay seventy thousand pounds for a session.

“So, I don’t support that bill but can bond them if you want.”

On the warning strike threatened by NARD, the Minister said it is not necessary since government was already engaged with the NMA, their umbrella body.

Ngige explained: “On the demand for 200 per cent salary increase, the NMA is the father of all doctors in Nigeria and they have about four or five affiliates of which the resident doctors is an association affiliating there.

“You have the Medical and Dental Consultants Association (MEDCAN), they are the consultants who are training these medical doctors to become specialists. You also have general medical practitioners association and you also have doctors working in the private sector

“So, NMA is the father of all including me. So, NMA is discussing with the federal ministry of health, salaries income and wages commission and the ministry of Labour and we know that NMA has accepted a salary increase between 25 and 30 per cent across board for their members.

“So, I don’t know the logic by which people who are members of NMA are now coming up to say pay us 200 per cent increase. I don’t understand it.

“I have called the NMA President to contact them because on the issue of remuneration negotiation, it’s NMA that the government deals with. So, I have told the President of NMA to contact them and we will engage them. They should not go on any strike, it’s not necessary.”

Ngige also said FEC approved the Universal Implementation of the Employee Compensation Act (ECA) 2010 following a memorandum presented by his ministry.