The Edo State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association on Thursday called off its strike over the government’s refusal to pay members’ salaries and allowances for the five-day warning strike called by the national leadership of the association.

The association, however, said it would not withdraw an earlier 21-day ultimatum it issued.

Chairman of state chapter of NMA, Dr. Emmanuel Ighodaro, said during a press conference that the body was calling off its three-day old strike because government had agreed to pay money deducted from their December 2013 salaries.

It, however, warned that the 21-day ultimatum it issued government to fix the health sector would expire on January 26, even as it said it had reached a truce with  government to set up a committee on needs assessment of the health sector in the state.

Ighodaro also urged the state government to quickly set up the committee and come up with a template for resolving the issues.

He said, “Yesterday (Wednesday) government met with NMA and the issue of no-work-no-pay was resolved. They have also resolved to refund it immediately and members have since resumed work as of 8am today (Thursday).

“The good news is that the government also agreed that the issues raised in our ultimatum are germane and very important to the improvement of health care delivery in Edo State and on that basis we believe that was a good development and in line with that, the government has also agreed to set up a high-powered committee to sit down with the NMA and take the issues one after the other with the view to developing a template prior to a meeting that will be held with the governor.

“We believe this is the best option because the issues raised in the ultimatum cannot be discussed in a meeting.”

Ighodaro said lack of basic working tools and poor working condition of doctors in state hospitals was affecting their productivity.

He said the state government’s inability to pay 100 per cent Consolidated  Health Salary Structure was encouraging doctors to dump state employment for federal jobs, a development he said was largely responsible for the paltry “150 doctors that are under the employment of the state government in the 18 local governments that make up the state.”

By James Azania, Benin