Medical doctors threaten strike over alleged underpayment
The Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria has given the Federal Government a 21-day ultimatum to resolve the issue of continuous underpayment of members, who are clinical lecturers in universities across the country.
The National President, (MDCAN), Prof Keneth Ozoilo, gave the ultimatum at a press conference in Jos, Plateau State, that the decision to issue the ultimatum was reached during the association’s emergency National Executive Council meeting held on July 19, 2021.
He said that all efforts at engaging various arms and agencies of government to achieve a negotiated peaceable solution in the past 10 years had proved an unmitigated failure.
The MDCAN president stated, “After extensive deliberation, NEC observed as follows, the income loss being suffered by consultants, who are clinical lecturers in the universities, has gone on for over 10 years.
“It is the direct result of the fact that they do two full-time jobs in both the universities and the teaching hospitals, yet receive a combined emolument that is less than that for one job.
“The income loss extends into retirement as their retirement benefits are much attenuated too due to the income loss incurred in the university.
“That this income loss is the result of the fact that their work in the teaching hospitals is under-compensated, and also the fact that the remuneration system in the university does not recognise them as doctors, despite the fact that the university primarily employs them because of the fact that they are doctors.
“That this income loss has led to the increasing difficulty in attracting the brightest and the best of consultants into the universities as lecturers, a steady exodus of the few doctors in academia to service centres and a worsening of the brain drain phenomenon,” he added.
NEC, therefore, hereby issues a 21-day ultimatum effective from Monday, July 26, 2021, to the government and its agencies as a notice of its resolve.
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Martha M/ Punch
