President of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) Dr. Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, has said that the people who deserve to resign or be sacked from their duties are those who have put the doctors in a position where they have to embark on industrial actions to drive home their demands.
Okhuaihesuyi said this on Sunday on a monitored Channels Television in reaction to comments by the Labour Minister, Chris Ngige, about replacing the striking doctors.
The Minister on Friday, had said that he had invoked Section 43 of the Labour Law which states, in part, that for the period a worker withdraws his services, the government or his employers are not entitled to pay.
“Their employer has a right to replace them. It doesn’t matter what you want to term it. We can use Locum doctors or medical officers,” he added.
But in reaction, the NARD president said: “I want to ask Nigerians to tell those that are the cause of the strike and have not done their work that they should be sacked or resign from the positions they hold”.
When asked who those persons are, he said: “The Minister of health, the Minister of Labour, the NDCM Registrar, Sanusi; they are the ones that should be held responsible for the strike we are on and something needs to be done to them. If they can do that to them, then they can implement the no-work no-pay policy”.
Monday marks the expiration of the one-week ultimatum given by the Labour Minister for the striking doctors to resume work.
Their failure to resume would result in the escalation of other measures by the minister.
“Next week, I will escalate it because the conciliation has failed and the law says that if conciliation fails on my own side, I can move it up.
“There are other things that are permitted by law. I will invoke other things,” Ngige had vowed on Friday.
But the NARD President has insisted that the strike will continue “fully and indefinitely”.
“You can’t be threatening someone when you have not done your part,” Okhuaihesuyi stressed.
