Festival of strikes: Resident Doctors issue strike notice to FG

The regime of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is beginning to witness torrent of festival of strikes in various public institutions in the country, National Daily reports.

The National Association of Resident Doctors (NARDs), has issued a nationwide strike notice effective from Monday September 4.

The President of NARDs, University College Hospital, UCH, Ibadan, Olusegun Olaopa, was said to have revealed this in a statement in Ibadan.

Olaopa said that the resident doctors would commence an indefinite industrial action next week to press home their demands.

According to him, the action is sequel a statement signed by John Onyebueze and Aneke Emmanuel, National President and Secretary of NARDs, respectively.

The statement said that it was resolved at the NEC meeting of NARDs held in Abuja on August 26 to embark on the strike.

“Neither the federal nor state governments has shown commitment to the resolution of issues at stake nor honoured previous agreements.

“Consequent upon this, the association resolved to proceed on a total indefinite industrial action fromMonday, September 4, 2017, until all these issues are permanently resolved.

“Nationwide pre-strike protests against this injustice are to hold in all our branches and states of the federation on August 30, 2017.

“All heads of tertiary health institutions who have received funding for payments to our members should be directed to pay same immediately,” it said.

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It was gathered that the members of NARDs are demanding for the resolution of persistent shortfalls and unpaid arrears of salaries earned in both federal and state tertiary health institutions.

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Other issues are the enrolment of resident doctors into the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System, IPPIS, since 2003, and non-implementation of adjusted House Officers’ Entry grade level equivalent since 2014.

The resident doctors are also asking for the resolution of issues around their stagnation of promotion and non-promotion of members who have met requisite criteria despite all collective bargaining agreements and circulars.

The resident doctors in UCH had on January 6, embarked on a one-day protest rally over non-payment of their November and December 2016 salaries.