Resident doctors in Kaduna begin industrial action

The Association of Resident Doctors ( ARD), Kaduna State chapter, has commenced an indefinite strike beginning from Wednesday.

The President of ARD, Dr Emmanuel Joseph said this in a statement made available to our reporter in Kaduna.

He said the strike was necessitated by the state government’s failure to honour an agreement it had with the association bordering on salary adjustments and tackling some challenges in the health sector.

“So, we were compelled to take this sad step.

”As a sign of good faith, we will continue to manage the patience in the lnfectious Deseases Control Centre being currently managed for lassa fever till patients fully recover,” he said.

He said the doctors would not accept new patients in any public health facility and were currently discharging or referring patients on admission, “as we cannot fully manage them,” he said.

Recall that since October 2017, the government and the ARD had mutually agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), in a meeting brokered by NMA, with timeline of implementation.

According to him, the ARD had kept its own part of the bargain while the government was yet to do so despite reminders and lobbying by the association.

According to him, the association also met with government on Nov. 25, 2019 and agreed to give it three months to implement the agreement, but also failed to do so.

“The government team again went to sleep until we were forced to give further reminder of our looming deadline,” he said.

According to him, the government responded by setting up a committee on Feb. 27, 2020, and the association honoured the committee chairman’s verbal demand for extension to March 3, 2020.

The state ARD president said the doctors had no option than to proceed on strike after the government again failed to respond to its demands at the end of the March 3 deadline.