DELTA State Governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, Friday assured of early call
\noff of the nation-wide strike action by the Nigeria Medical Association
\n(NMA) which has crippled hospital services, hinting that the strike would
\nbe called off in the next few days.<\/p>\n
The Governor who fielded questions from Journalists in Asaba, Delta State
\nobserved that lives have been lost as a result of the strike action
\ndisclosing that he has met with all the parties involved in the industrial
\nface off and members of NMA have agreed that if they could not call off
\nthe strike action, skeletal services would be rendered for the sake of
\nlives of Nigerians.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you recall, the Doctors gave a warning strike sometime in December,
\n2013, they were to go on another strike early January but, we had to
\nintervene and some agreements were reached with the Federal Government,\u201d
\nthe Governor said, adding, \u201cI understand that some of those agreements
\nthat were reached have not been fulfilled and that is some of the reasons
\nthey had to go on strike that started on the 1st of July.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he had to move to Abuja when the strike commenced and put together
\na team of some medical doctors in government including the Chairman,
\nSenate Committee on Health, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa; Dr. Doyin Okupe Special
\nAdviser to Mr. President on Public Communications, and held a meeting with
\nthe government team led by the Secretary to the Government of the
\nFederation, Senator Pius Ayim; Minister for Health; Minister of State for
\nHealth; Minister for Labour; and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of
\nHealth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThereafter we held a special meeting with them and discussed the major
\nissues, we then brought in the officials of the Nigerian Medical
\nAssociation (NMA) and extensive meetings were held till quite late into
\nthe night.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think reasonably some of the issues have been resolved and hopefully,
\nemergency services should start very soon, by God\u2019s grace in the next few
\ndays because, they still need to meet with the delegates (I think they
\ncall it the emergency delegate meeting)\u00a0 in the next few days hopefully,\u201d
\nthe Governor stated.<\/p>\n
He also, debunked insinuations that the strike action have political
\nundertone, asserting: \u201cHaving met with both sides, I will not read
\npolitical meaning into it, I didn\u2019t pick up any political undertone to it
\nand I think that they might be some challenges with the management of the
\nissues at one point or the other but, both parties involved in the issue
\nmet and I cannot read political meaning to the strike action.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of us don\u2019t believe in strike and I personally do not believe strike
\nis the best means of achieving whatever I want to achieve, there is no
\ndoubt that there are challenges in the health sector especially, with the
\ndoctors and sometimes some of the attitude of those of us in government
\nand the way we operate can push workers to go on strike,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He decried the situation where strike has to be embarked upon to resolve
\nthe issues at stake saying: \u201cWhen I heard about this particular strike
\naction, I will say I was taken aback, I was surprised because I didn\u2019t
\nknow it had gotten to an extent where the officials will go on strike
\nbecause, as much as possible the medical profession should be one of the
\nset of workers that should be very wary of strike because, for every
\nminute of strike, lives are lost and for lives that are lost you can never
\nget the life back and that is why I had to work with the then NMA
\nPresident to see how we could talk to ourselves on the issue of strike.\u201d<\/p>\n
On why he intervened to see to the end of the strike action, he said it
\nwas based on the fact that he is a medical doctor, a concerned citizen and
\nas Governor of a state who was not comfortable with the strike action.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m intervening on many fronts:\u00a0 I\u2019m intervening as a Medical Doctor
\nbecause each time I hear of strike in the medical profession I get very
\nembarrassed, secondly, I think as a Governor of a state, at least one of
\nthe persons who has the reach within members of NMA and that is why I used
\nto tell people that, if you have the reach to be able to intervene on any
\nissue just try and do it, so, I am also intervening because with my
\nposition as a Governor of a state, I have some reach to those that are
\nconcerned that can resolve the matter,\u201d Dr Uduaghan stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DELTA State Governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, Friday assured of early call off of the nation-wide strike action by the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) which has crippled hospital services, hinting that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n