The Senate on Thursday appealed to members of the National Association of Resident Doctors to call off their nationwide industrial action.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe, made the appeal on the sidelines of a public hearing on the
.
Oloriegbe, while making his remark, said the committee before the strike had met with representatives of the doctors with a view to resolving the issues in contention and avert the action ultimately.
He said: “I want to put on record that as National Assembly, we made efforts to avert the doctors going on strike.
“We had a marathon meeting just before Easter; on March 21 specifically, and we agreed on all the issues that are raised by the resident doctors.
“Particularly, three are very germane. One is payment of salary to house officers which as at that time they also agreed that had essentially been cleared and that was the major reason they wanted to go on strike.
“The second one was what they claimed that there should be payment to local resident doctors which was an aberration where there was not supposed to be local but the government agreed to commence payment which has started to be done.
“Those are the two critical ones that were germane. Most of the other issues that were raised are not even issues within the purview of the Federal Government because they are issues of state governments that owed salaries.
“The Federal Ministry of Finance confirmed that a committee has been set up to look at the other aspects.
“So, we are surprised that the resident doctors went on strike. However, we are not reneging.”
The committee Chairman appealed to the doctors to resume work while negotiations and discussions would continue on outstanding issues.
Earlier, sponsor of the Bill on Federal Medical Centre, Mubi, Adamawa State, Senator Aishatu Dahiru, said it was abundantly clear and socially necessary that Mubi should have a federal medical centre to bridge the health living standard gaps of the people.
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