Nigerian doctors to resume work after two-month strike

Doctors at Nigeria’s state-run hospitals will resume work this week after calling off a two-month-long strike on Monday over pay, benefits, and poor facilities, their union said.

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), which represents around 40 percent of the doctors in Africa’s most populous country, said that while some issues were yet to be resolved, some of their requested payments had been made.  

RESUMING AFTER SUSPENDED STRIKE

The union’s National Executive Council “resolved… to suspend the total and indefinite strike action embarked upon on 2 August,” it said in a statement.

“Our members will resume full work on Wednesday 6 October 2021 by 8:00 am,” NARD President Dare Ishaya told reporters.

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GOVERNMENT TO PAY UP

He said the union expected the government to pay outstanding salary arrears and withdraw a lawsuit against them. 

There are some 42 000 doctors in Nigeria, a country of around 210 million people.

INADEQUATE ENVIRONMENT

Among them, 16 000 are resident doctors – medical school graduates training as specialists – who have long complained of a lack of beds and drugs in hospitals as well as inadequate protective equipment.

The latest strike took place as the country battled a third coronavirus wave. 

Nigeria has recorded more than 200 000 Covid-19 cases and over 2 720 deaths, but the true figures are believed to be higher than reported due to low testing.

© Agence France-Presse