Chief executives of federal tertiary health facilities in the country have urged the federal government to make supplementary budget provisions to accommodate the payment of a welfare package which non-payment has sent resident doctors on an indefinite strike for months now. 

 

Members of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) across the country have been on strike for months now to press for the implementation of Skipping on Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS), a welfare package which allows the striking doctors to benefit from salary grade ahead of their promotion. 

 

 

The lingering strike by the doctors, therefore, compelled chief executives of the tertiary hospitals to sit for a meeting, earlier in the week, with an outcome recommending the government to make budgetary provision for the welfare package, having acknowledged that Budget 2015 has no provision for the payment.  

 

The Committee of Chief Medical Directors and Medical Directors, in a communiqué signed at the end of the meeting, said circulars from relevant bodies including the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission (NSIWC), Office of the Head of Service of the Federation (OHOSOF), as well as the Budget Office of the Federation (BOF), have respectively shown that there was no inclusion of Skipping on CONMESS in the 2015 Budget for the tertiary institutions to implement.

 

By Hir Joseph

Daily Trust