UCH resident doctors call off strike

Three and a half months after they went on an indefinite strike over non-implementation of a grade level ‎skipping as directed by the Head of Service of the Federation, the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan branch, Monday called on all its members to resume duty immediately, while negotiation continues with the hospital management.

According to the President of the ARD, Dr. Luqman Ogunjimi and the Secretary General, Dr. Anthony Ude during a press conference addressed at‎ the UCH Monday, the association decided to call off the strike following intervention from well- meaning Nigerians including former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes (CCII), Elders in the field of Medicine and Dentistry and the Medical, Dental Council Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), among others.

‎The statement reads: “Our members are hereby directed by the Emergency General meeting of the ARD, UCH, to resume back to their duty posts 8a.m. Monday, 17th August, 2015, while negotiation continues”.

While calling off the strike, according to the President “in the interest of our patients”, the association nevertheless noted that the UCH management had the opportunity of paying the skipping allowance from the increased N940 million from the personnel subvention of the hospital.

According to Ogunjimi: “Our stand as a congress is that this N940 million can be used to pay skipping since payment of salary from personnel subvention can never be misappropriation, more importantly now that the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, has expressly reiterated the directive for skipping”.

It urged the UCH management ‎under the Chief Medical Directorship of Professor Temitope Alonge to give attention to other perennial local issues including: “deplorable and dilapidated call rooms, delay and non-promotion of our members even after meeting all requisite conditions, unremitted pension fund deduction/refusal of enrolment of our members on the Contributory Pension Scheme – all contributing to the failed negotiation of over 17 months prior to the commencement of the strike, while the hospital management remained defiant to our agitation over these injustices”.