After 55 days of industrial action, the Nigerian Medical Association had a rethink apparently in reaction to pleas by influential personalities and the trauma and tension unleashed on the nation by the incursion of the Ebola Virus.

NMA leader, Dr. Lawrence Obembe told journalists in Abuja that delegates considered the intervention of President Goodluck Jonathan, the Senate President, David Mark and other prominent Nigerians, in reaching the decision to suspend the strike embarked upon on July 1, this year. The current reality of critical health challenges and threats posed by the outbreak of Ebola virus in the country also spurred the decision.

With alacrity, Dr. Obembe said that “all medical and dental doctors are hereby directed to resume duty at their working posts with effect from 8.00 hours of Monday, 25th August, 2014.” Our hearts are gladdened that the doctors have since complied with the directives.

While we join other Nigerians to appreciate the decision by the striking practitioners to end the strike in the interest of the nation, our hearts go to the families that either lost dear relations or had their ailments complicated as a result of absence of proper attention by experienced medical experts while the strike action lingered.

If all the necessary interventions had been made to avert the industrial action, some of the people would probably be alive today, and the now complex cases better mitigated.

This underscores our position that every possible step needs to be taken by all stakeholders to either completely avoid or shorten industrial actions at any point in time because of the huge costs, distortions and trauma associated with them. So also are we encouraged that concerted efforts are being made by stakeholders, medical and dental doctors to contain the Ebola outbreak despite the strike action, according to the NMA chieftain.

However, we add that whoever is involved at whatever level in the fight to halt the multifarious challenges and gaps in the nation’s healthcare sector should henceforth concentrate more on achieving evidence-based results that can save the greater percentage of the country’s estimated population of 170 million rather than on mere efforts coded and loaded in catchy rhetorical expressions.

This explains why we commend the federal government for the bold steps it has taken not only to reinstate about 16,000 resident doctors sacked in response to the strike embarked upon by members of the NMA, but also to pay their two-month salary arrears.

It is our belief that the striking doctors would reciprocate this gesture and allow peace to reign over the lingering crisis situation in the country so that progress can be made in addressing our collective interests in the already delicate healthcare sector. All other aggrieved persons and institutions should now also sheathe their swords in the spirit of true reconciliation.

For this reason, we do not share the position and sentiments of the Health Committee of the House of Representatives in demanding apologies to Nigerians from members of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) over what they tagged the “unpatriotic” strike embarked upon by medical doctors.

The Chairman, House of Representatives’ Committee on Health, Ndudi Elumelu, while addressing journalists in Abuja on the suspension of the NMA strike, said it was not enough for NMA to call off the strike, and demanded that the association apologise to Nigerians over the “avoidable” deaths. “The committee has a final word for NMA. The NMA has suspended the strike, but it has failed to do one thing: the NMA failed to apologise to Nigerians.

The NMA should apologise to Nigerians for all the inconveniences and lives that were lost during the strike,” he asserted. Although it is unfortunate that medical doctors, given the specialised nature of their profession, failed to exercise caution in the decision to embark on the strike in the first instance, we advise that the overarching reasons for which they embarked on the action should now be thoroughly and adequately addressed in order to avoid a reoccurrence.

This, we strongly believe, is a rather more germane and urbane approach than stoking the fire of emotions in the moves to reconcile, claw back and put behind us the harvest of deaths from the outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) and other more manageable ailments during the period of the industrial action.

While we share the Committee’s concern, we appeal to them to bury the hatchet and let the sleeping dog lie at this point. It is enough that the medical practitioners lost the unique opportunity to display their professional prowess in such manners that could have won national and international awards, including the much-soughtafter Nobel Prize for them if they had been available to manage the Ebola syndrome. Stretching them further to extract their apologies to the nation may not be an easy nut to crack now.

Our position is that all stakeholders should be more pragmatic and proactive in addressing and assuaging the grievances of professionals and other constituents of the labour force to nip strike actions in the bud rather than waste time and other valuable resources to negotiate after the milk has already been spattered and hefty losses incurred.