•Govt calls for dialogue

Ekiti State Chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has threatened to embark on warning strike involving both public and private sections of the state’s health sector between April 7 and 9 if the state government fails to reverse the outrageous tax being paid by its members and meet their other demands.

The union also called for immediate restoration of the consolidated medical salary scale to doctors working at the local government as applicable to their colleagues at the secondary and tertiary hospitals in the state towards preventing imminent collapse of the system.

The state Chairman of NMA, Dr Obitade Obimakinde, spoke at the weekend during a press conference in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, lamenting the high tax being levelled on doctors at the secondary health institutions in the state, stressing that the measure has been affecting their well-being.

Obimakinde said that the union took the decision to embark on warning strike at its ordinary general meeting of March 27 after the state government failed to meet their demands even with several meetings with Governor Kayode Fayemi on the lingering crises bedevilling the sector.

He urged the state government to meet the following demands if the impending strike must be halted – implementation of specialist allowance to consultants working at the hospital management board, computation of retirement benefits for doctors using CONMESS template and immediate release of running grants to general and specialist hospitals in the state, adding that their members in the private sector would join the three-day warning strike as some of them are also affected by the high tax.

Obimakinde emphasised that the warning strike would be reviewed by members if government remains recalcitrant on their demands.

However, Commissioner for Health, Professor Olusola Fasuba, expressed dismay at the doctors’ impatient to threaten strike in any dispute, stressing that dialogue, mutual understanding and trust could do a lot good.

“I’m not impressed by the action of the doctors, this is not the way they were trained. We need to embrace dialogue, we need to be patient. We know the activities of many of them, they hardly stay at their duty posts. They cannot blackmail me, they should do their homework properly.”

Fasuba assured that actions are being taken on their demands following series of meeting, many of which the governor was involved.

By: RAPHAEL ADEYANJU

Daily Newswatch