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Resident doctors under the aegis of the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan on Wednesday commenced a five-day warning strike over alleged short-payment in their salaries and allowances.
The hospital management has however described the strike as “self-serving, uncalled for and labour rascality.”
The Chief Medical Director (CMD), Prof. Temitope Alonge, who addressed journalists on Wednesday said the hospital was still running because all other doctors were on their duty posts. He assured patients of their safety, saying that the striking doctors were still being engaged in dialogue.
Alonge also explained that government was yet to release allocation for the increased salaries being agitated for.
Alonge accused the ARD of submitting the letter of ultimatum 11:00 pm on Tuesday. He said the union gave a nine-hour ultimatum which lapsed 8:00 am yesterday. He said the ARD had written a letter to him at 8:00 pm, which he replied 10:00 pm.
The CMD expressed surprise that a labour union could give an overnight nine-hour ultimatum before declaring a strike.
According to him, the issue of increased salary christened SKIPPING, was yet to be fully resolved by the Federal Government.
He explained that a little surplus in the salary payment platform was used to effect the payment for July salaries but that the ARD leadership agreed with the Management to use their deductions for the month of August to effect the payment of the new wages.
After doing that, however, the cooperative society rejected the idea of using deductions for further payment, a development that forced the hospital to pay the old rate for September.
Alonge warned that any unionist who perpetrated violence would be arrested. “That is not a threat. Force will be met with force.” He said.
But ARD Chairman, Dr. Luqman Ogunjimi, said members took the decision on the strike at a congress held late Tuesday afternoon when it was observed that the Management was not ready to either dialogue or respond to an earlier mail sent, warning of the impending danger if their demands were not met
He said: “We wrote them a letter dated October 7, 2016 making our demands clear. Meanwhile, the CMD had told me to arrange a congress last week saturday to appease to our members that the money would be paid only for management to short-pay us.
“I was here till 10:00 pm yesterday and went to the CMD’s office on different occasions but was told that he was busy. It was obvious he wasn’t ready to attend to us and we had a congress where it was decided that we should go on the strike with effect from today.”
Ogunjimi also confirmed that medical services were not grounded at the hospital. “Doctors are on duty at the Intensve Care Unit, Special Care Unit for neonatal and the Accident and Emergency Unit so that medical activities will not be crippled.”
The strike was also not allowed to affect the ongoing examination by the West African College of Physicians.