The Benue State government yesterday said that the current warning strike by the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in the state was totally illegal, uncalled for and unbecoming of professional conduct.
The state Commissioner of Health and Human Services, Dr. Cecilia Ojabo, said while addressing a news conference in Makurdi that the NMA did not exhaust all avenues before declaring the strike contrary to the information it dished out to the public.
“In all my over 30 years in the medical profession, this is the first time that I have witnessed a call for total strike for all doctors, including consultants who don’t go on strike,” she said, adding that the state government had already met five out of the six demands of the doctors when the association affiliate through a letter communicated their grievances to the governor last month. She also explained that the allegation by the NMA that the state had only 50 doctors to cater for over six million citizens in all of its 23 general hospitals was untrue as there were altogether 91 doctors.
The health commissioner queried the rationale behind the association’s strike on issues involving its affiliates without the affiliates declaring a dispute, arguing that the affiliates of NMA such as Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) and Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) were in the best position to negotiate disputes if there were any in the normal tradition of the profession.
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