Resident Doctors Suspend Nationwide Strike

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has suspended its nationwide strike and will resume work on Saturday.

The association’s national president Innocent Orji confirmed the development on Friday evening.

“Good evening. We just suspended the strike. Work to resume 8 am tomorrow,” he said in a terse message to Channels Television. “We will review the progress made in two weeks.”

The move is coming days after the doctors suspended their planned nationwide protest to press home their demands.

According to the NARD chief, the doctors are pushing for eight things including the recruitment of more persons to replace doctors who have migrated or those who passed on.

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“Our members are suffering. Nigerians are suffering too. When you don’t have the right number of doctors in the hospital, there is no way it is not going to affect the healthcare service delivery system. And nobody has come out to tell us that what we are saying is not true,” he maintained.

“The government on its own set up a ministerial committee that came up with a guideline since February this year, why hasn’t that guideline been circularised?” he asked.

He accused the government of failing to meet the doctors’ demands.

Earlier, the union’s executive had met with senators led by Senate President Godswill Akpabio.

NARD declared the “total and indefinite strike action” on July 25, 2023, over several demands including an increase in wages for the doctors.