Resident doctors on Saturday, extended their early deadline given the federal government to meet their demands by three weeks or its members would resume their suspended strike on Monday, August 17, 2020.
The doctors under the aegis of National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, addressing the media in Abuja, said the decision was a fallout of their extraordinary meeting held in respect to government’s response to their demands.
But the doctors warned that nothing will prevent them from embarking on industrial action if the government fails to address their demands before the end of the new ultimatum, expected to end on August 17.
President of NARD, Dr Aliyu Sokomba, who spoke on behalf of executive members he led to the briefing, regretted that government had not demonstrated much willingness to address the union’s demands.
The organisation had on June 22, directed members to suspend their earlier strike it embarked on from June 15.
The union had demanded that government provides personal protective equipment, PPEs, procure group life insurance for health workers, including Medical Residency Training funding in the revised 2020 budget, provide COVID-19 inducement hazard allowance, reengage resident doctors disengaged at Jos University Teaching Hospital as well as address salary shortfall for 2014 to 2016 among others.