Barring last minute change of decision, the Nigerian Medical Association is to begin a nationwide strike today. The action is expected to affect all public hospitals across the country.
The group stated this in a release signed by its president, Osahon Enabulele, and made available to Saturday Mirror, on Wednesday. NMA had suspended its planned industrial action twice in three months, following federal government’s promise to amicably resolve the group’s grievances.
Crisis arose in September when NMA warned that it would down tools should federal government fail to meet its demands which include: correction of alleged anomaly that characterises Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), distortions of relativity and hierarchical order, professionalism, misapplication of nomenclatures such as Consultants and Directors in the nation’s hospital.
The group eventually softpedalled, adding additional four-week “grace” to its warning, following a committee set up by government, headed by Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Alhaji Goni Aji, to look into the crisis.
But, on Wednesday, NMA renewed its threat, saying “as countdown to the expiration of the NMA ultimatum draws near…“the Minister of Health should be held responsible for any crisis that erupts in the health sector.”
It stressed: “Efforts by the NMA to engage the leadership of the Federal Ministry of Health even at this eleventh hour collapsed following the unserious approach and attitude of the leadership of the Federal Ministry of Health which seems to be less bordered about the potential crisis which may erupt in Nigeria’s health sector from Saturday, December 14, 2013.
