Disregard Circular Sacking Resident Doctors, FG Tells Heads Of Tertiary Health Institutions

Isaac-AdewoleThe Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has asked Chief Medical Directors and Medical Directors of Federal Tertiary health institutions across the country to disregard a circular directing them to fill the vacancies created by resident doctors, who were on strike.
Adewole, in the circular signed and issued Tuesday in Abuja by Amina Shamaki, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, said resident doctors had “voluntarily withdrawn from the residency training programme by refusing to report for training without authorization”, a clear violation of public service rules.
The circular directed management of the health institutions to replace all such doctors, about 16,000 of them, with others from pool of applicants for the training programmes.
The striking doctors under the aegis of National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, were protesting the sack of some of their colleagues, working conditions, unpaid salaries, non-payment of ‘skipping’ entitlement, among others.
Representatives of the NARD, led by its national president, Dr. Muhammad Askira, were reportedly in a meeting brokered by Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, with representatives of the Ministry of Health, when the circular containing their sack was issued.
However, following a successful outcome of the five-hour meeting, the federal government agreed to implement the resolutions reached with the resident doctors.
Prof. Adewole said, “We will do everything humanly possible to implement all the decisions arrived at in this meeting including the fact the circular sacking Resident doctors be ignored by all the parties concerned”.
The meeting is to reconvene in three weeks to review progress on the resolutions.