The House of Representatives on Friday in Abuja begged the National Association of Resident Doctors to consider the plight of Nigerians and end its nine days old strike.
The Chairman, House Committee on Healthcare Services, Tanko Sununu, made the appeal at a five-hour meeting between NARD and the committee.
Sununu pleaded with NARD to consider the plight of ordinary citizens, promising that all the issues raised would be addressed.
He begged: “Please, consider the plight of a common man who has to go and source for what to eat on a daily basis.
“If these people fall sick, they have nowhere to go.
“Not all of us can afford to go to private hospitals.
“Please, consider their plight and temper justice with mercy and call off the strike.”
Sununu said the plea followed the promise extracted from NARD that they were going to present the achievements so far discussed to their members in a bid to end the strike.
He said the issues discussed were very contentious and that the meeting took such a long time because parties were trying to address issues one after the other.
Sununu said it agreed that a review of the hazard allowance must be done with immediate effect for all healthcare workers in the country.
He said: “N5,000 remains quite unacceptable, but we have not agreed on any figure.
“That will be left for the Ministry to decide because they have already initiated that discussion and we leave them for that discussion.”
Sununu also said both parties agreed that the overall budget of Medical Residency Training Fund should be taken from the assigned body by the National Postgraduate Medical College as assigned by the Act.
He said it was also agreed that 1,003 of NARD members were not paid, and that the amount to be returned by over 5,000 resident doctors must also be paid directly to members who were yet to be paid.
He added that a memo should be made for the remaining 446 members of NARD that had not paid for the National Postgraduate College so that their payment could also be effected.
The chairman said it was agreed that the House Officers must be paid within the shortest possible time.
He said the committee came up with an agreement to set up a committee that would audit all the activities of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria in the last five years.
NARD had on April 1 embarked on an indefinite nationwide strike over failure of the federal government to honour its demands.