The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Daju Kachallom has has faulted the action of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) to go on strike without a Minister in place as highly unreasonable.
She appealed to the conscience of the striking medical professionals to shelve their planned nationwide protest in the interest of Nigerians who rely on them for medical care in hospitals across the country.
Kachallom, who had a brief interaction with the media to highlight some of the constraints facing the ministry, lamented that Nigerians were dying in their numbers owing to Doctors absence in the hospitals.
She noted that government was working assiduously to meet all the demands of NARD within the shortest period of time, adding that the major demands of NARD was being responded to including:; the Medical Residency Training Fund (MRTF) and timely replacement of doctors as some are leaving the system for greener pastures.
She also said that while the committee set up to look into the issues raised by NARD needs to conclude their work within the time frame given and submit recommendations for government to work with, government had appealed to the striking doctors to exercise little patience for ministers to come on board.
She added: “We held another meeting here on the 17th of July 2023 to review the level of implementation from the government side and we appealed to them (NARD) that complete carry away unless governments see to what they can do because this is a new regime; we just came in on the 29th of May, and we couldn’t welcome them with a strike.
“To be honest, federal government on its side has done quite a bit of trying to who ensure that the National Association of Resident Doctors do not go on strike but they still went ahead.
“The main crux of the matter for now are two main issues; payment of the 2023 Medical Residency Training Fund and one on one replacement of exited doctors
“On the immediate payment of 2023 Medical Residency Training Fund we appealed to them that they should kindly await when ministers are in place because permanent secretaries have a threshold and what the government is expected to pay is far and above the threshold of the permanent Secretary secretary. Very soon we are sure that ministers are going to be in place and we told them to please tarry a while we understand the plight of where you’re coming from.
“We are pleading with them to call off the strike. To be honest, the Federal Ministry of Health their parent ministry actually wrote to the Presidency on the issue in the health sector for him to intervene, we are awaiting his response.”
Explaining further she said an inter-ministerial committee was set up to look into the one on one replacement of doctors. Her words: “we need to determine and establish who exactly are exiting because we’re all guided as civil servants by the public service rules. There’s a difference between exits from an office, there is study leave, there is leave of absence and different kinds of leave so we need to be sure.
“We all know how these things work in the Federal civil system and we pleaded again for a little more time for the committee to wrap up and when recommendations are made we will bring them forth”.
