ABUTH Resident Doctors Call Off 5-Day Strike After ‘Talks With Management’

Confidence UbaniJuly 23, 20241 Mins read237

Resident doctors at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH) have suspended their proposed five-day warning strike. The strike, which began on July 22, was due to grievances over salary payments and the non-payment of accoutrement allowances.

Dr Ashiru Mikail, Vice President of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), announced Tuesday that the strike was suspended Monday evening after a marathon meeting with ABUTH management. The resident doctors resumed work at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday.

There was a serious commitment from the management to address our demands. The management has pledged to stop percentage salary payments to our members and has charted robust initiatives to prevent further industrial disharmony, Dr Mikail said.

The resident doctors’ strike had aimed to protest the percentage salary payments for members on the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) platform and the non-payment of accoutrement allowances, among other issues.

Last year, in July, the president approved the payment of an accoutrement allowance of 25,000 Naira per quarter for medical and dental doctors in the public service. This is according to a document titled “Accoutrement Allowance for Medical and Dental Doctors in Hospitals, Medical Centres and Clinics in Federal MDAs“, signed by Ekpo Nta.

The federal government promised to fund this allowance from the overhead budget to support doctors in hospitals, medical centres, and clinics within the federal public service. The ABUTH doctors had lamented that they had not been receiving this payment. The resolution reached during their recent meeting, however, reportedly gave them confidence that their grievances will be resolved.