Three-Day Warning Ongoing, Preparing for Indefinite.
In Nigeria of today, everybody wants to be related to a medical doctor since everyone cannot be one however long they so wished. Medical emergencies are half penny a dozen yet becoming a medical doctor is no mean feat even as the medical-school course work is noted to be more voluminous and strenuous than any other university course up to PhD level.
It is therefore not surprising that every government prioritises the welfare of their medical doctors as part of easing healthcare delivery in their constituencies especially in this time of “japa”. Yes, every government: the reasonable ones without prodding, the other ones after much goading, even repeated strikes.
At the federal level, CONMESS, the salary scale for government medical doctors, was reviewed recently with arrears backdated to the 1st of June, 2023. Many states from Ekiti, up to the North and back down to Delta (just recently) have since followed suit in commitments and actual payments. It is the implementation of this review for State-employed medical doctors in Ogun that has finally resulted in a 3-day warning strike under the auspices of the Nigerian Medical Association Ogun State Branch.
An anonymous doctor narrates their ordeal:
We have been on these welfare issues since last year September when we declared a strike action because our federal counterparts had been receiving a COVID 19-prompted revised Hazard Allowance for two years before us and the State Government insisted on not paying any arrears. We eventually shelved that strike when a top-level government official promised to pay the Reviewed CONMESS this year once it was approved at the federal level.
Now, going to six months after that approval with payment of arrears from June last year, the Ogun State Government has been dribbling us. We finally resolved to go on strike after two consecutive three-week ultimatums elapsed without any concrete action by the Ogun State Government.
Out of empathy for the good citizens of Ogun State however, we gave room for a Memorandum of Understanding to be signed in lieu of immediate payment but the Government is not just serious. The medical doctors in the state employ are overworked. A lot have left to the federal institutions and some have travelled out further increasing the burden on the very few remaining ones.
According to her, their three-day warning strike commenced on Wednesday, 24th July, 2024. They plan to resume duties 8am on Saturday, give Government one week to sign an agreeable MoU or risk an indefinite strike the following week. Whereas only the state-employed doctors are currently downing tools, plans are underway to co-opt their federal counterparts working in Ogun State (notably the Federal Medical Centre Abeokuta and the Neuropsychiatric Hospital Aro) since those ones will bear the brunt of the diverted patient burden.
Already the country is suffering from a deficit of licensed medics with some quarters already clamouring for importation of expatriates. One hopes the Ogun State Government will not frustrate her own doctors for any reason at all, least of all the ego of one or more high-level officials.
In a follow-up to this coverage, we hope to report the position of the officials of the Nigerian Medical Association Ogun State Branch on this reviewed CONMESS and any other issue of concern. We pray all issues are amicably resolved by then — with incentives to attract new, younger, doctors to the state employ.
God bless Nigeria.