Osagie Ehanire, minister of health, says consultants doctors
and corps members have been mobilised to fill the void left behind by the
resident doctors who are on strike.
Speaking during a state house media briefing on Thursday,
Ehanire said it is a wrong time for doctors to embark on strike as the country
is in a “vulnerable period”.
“Although the resident doctors have gone on strike, and as I
said before, we are appealing to them not to use this very vulnerable period
when the country is facing a war,” he said.
“For those of you who have been very keenly following
international news, you know the havoc that the Delta variant did in India, and
what it has done and it is doing in Indonesia, Ireland, and other countries.
“We have only one or two percent of eligible Nigerians
vaccinated. So we are really facing something like a war. When you face a war,
that is not the time that soldiers say they are not going to fight.”
The minister appealed to the striking doctors to call off
the strike, adding that the government is working to meet their demands.
“We don’t want to see here, what happened in India where
they also lost 400,000 lives due to COVID-19 Delta strain, we don’t want that,”
he said.
He called on the striking doctors to join forces with the
government to “face this common enemy”.
“But even then, during this strike, we have mobilised all
consultants and youth corpers and all those who render services to ensure they
are rendering service, to ensure that the hospital services do not collapse and
everybody is doing very well,” the minister added.
“I salute the consultants and youths corpers and all those
who are not on strike, who are giving service and also the private sector who
are supporting us. The private sector is rising up to the challenge to make
sure that health services, one way or the order, are going on and there is not
serious distress in the hospitals.”
Speaking on the ‘no work, no pay’ directive issued in the
wake of the strike, Ehanire said it is not to threaten the doctors, but an
international practice.
“Nobody is
threatening anybody with anything. That is a standard thing, that is the
International Labour Organisation (ILO) recommendation that if you didn’t work
why will you get paid,” he said.
“Your salary comes from taxpayers money, so if you didn’t
work why should you go and be saying you should be paid because if that is
so, you can be encouraged to stay home
for up to six months and your salary is running from public funds, from
taxpayers money and you have not given the community any service.”
The resident doctors embarked on a nationwide strike on
August 2, citing irregular payment of salaries, hazard allowances, among other
issues.
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