House of Reps hopeful of imminent end to Doctors strike

The House of Representatives in Nigeria is hopeful that the industrial action embarked on by the National Association of Resident Doctors will be called off in the next few days. Lawmakers are intervening in the faceoff between the representatives of the Ministry of Health and the leaders of National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD).

Their intervention appears to have been productive, with the Chairman of the House Committee on Health Institutions, Betty Apiafi, seeing a possible resolution in coming days. The lawmakers expressed their confidence on Tuesday after a five-hour meeting convened by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Yakubu Dogara, with a Federal Government delegation and leaders of the NARD.

 The Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, told reporters that they had agreed to sheath their swords in the interest of Nigerians. The President of the NARD, Muhammed Askira, however, said the strike had not been put off yet. This is coming just as the Federal Government has asked Heads of Government Tertiary Health Institutions to replace doctors that have abandoned their duties in protest of what they called poor welfare. Residents’ doctors at the Federal Government’s institutions have downed tools after the association asked them to stay away from work in protest of poor welfare.