• February 11, 2025

Considering that some of the demands raised by the striking National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), has to do with various states, the Federal Government has vowed to mount pressure on the affected state governments to meet their demands.

The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, gave the assurance while responding to questions from journalists at the Presidential Task Force (PTF) media briefing on Thursday.

He, however, reiterated that the federal government cannot force the state government to meet the demands of the doctors.

“The young doctors had erroneous believe that we could detect what goes on in other states, there are certain complaints which they have not with the federal government or the federal ministry of health but with certain states which we see that we can only put in a good word but we cant deal with the problem within the state.

“We will put in a word, we assured them of that, but we cant solve the problems that occur in specific states,” Ehanire said.

He further noted that the federal government can only make advocacy and mount pressure on the state governments about the doctors but insisted that it cannot force the state.

Speaking further on the demands of the Resident Doctors, the Minister said: “I had a deep meeting with the resident doctors in my office this morning.

“We had a frank discussion. I made it clear to them that we work within a system where things have to follow certain processes and they were very attentive.

“There are many of the observations they made which can be remedied easily like the one for Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) which, as a matter of fact, have been distributed widely in two phases, first of all to each state government and secondly to every tertiary hospitals in all the states.

“So, if I hear now that there is a shortage in the FCT, I will be surprise because FCT is the closest to the warehouse. We have one in Lagos and one in Abuja and other places. I am not sure that the information about PPEs is correct because I have personally priorities the issue of PPE and have also pleaded for rational use because we import it and if we don’t use it properly it can easily run out.

“We ensure that they are readily available in the all the place where they are needed.

“We are very careful to ensure that where there is shortage, it is easily remedied. We are using an electronic system to ensure that the management of such thing is properly documented.

“We also explained that this period of COVID-19 is not a good time to go on strike because people’s lives can be at risk, it may be the life of someone you know or even a life of a relative.

“They are appeared to have appreciated that very well because COVID does not discriminate between anyone at all. So, they appear to appreciate that and I believe they will cover up and go back to duty as assigned.

“The few others things they brought up are very clear we can deal with these ones. The issue of discipline and so on.

“I believe and I am sure they will reconsider. We had a frank talk.”

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