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Doctors across the country have commenced a nationwide strike despite an appeal by the Federal Government that they should shelve the idea.
The president, National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), Dr Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, confirmed the commencement of the strike action on Channels Television programme, ‘Sunrise Daily,’on Thursday.
NARD had threatened to embark on an indefinite strike from April 1, if salaries and allowances of members were not paid.
On Wednesday, the Federal Government asked resident doctors to suspend the plan.
Minister of Labor and Employment, Chris Ngige, made the appeal at a meeting with members of the association in Abuja.
Ngige appealed to the doctors to reconsider going on strike because their withdrawal of service may cause damage to the country’s health system which is already stressed by COVID-19.
But speaking on Channels Television, Okhuaihesuyi said the strike commenced at 8am on Thursday.
“The strike commenced 8am, and we enjoin all resident doctors to start the strike immediately.
“We had a meeting with the Minister of Labour from 4pm to about 12am this morning, but as it stands; we have been used to memorandum of understandings for over a decade now, and we insist on the implementation of what we wrote on our strike message.
“We’re not just doing this for resident doctors, we’re doing this for all heath workers,” he said.