The House of Representatives on Monday evoked the Secretary to the Regime of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim; and the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, over the perpetual strike by public sector medical medicos in the country.
Additionally evoked was the Head of Accommodation of the Federation, Alhaji Bukar Goni, and Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, Dr. Bright Okogu.
The House Committee on Health evoked the officials to appear afore it unfailingly on Thursday after they failed to accolade a kindred invitation to a stakeholders’ meeting on the strike on Monday (yesterday).
The committee, which is chaired by Mr. Ndudi Elumelu, had verbally expressed that the presence of the key regime officials was consequential in the efforts by the House to resolve the crisis.
Elumelu noted that some of the doctors’ demands had financial implicative insinuations, which could not be addressed without aurally perceiving the position of the regime, particularly from Okonjo-Iweala.
“It will be absolutely infeasible for us to resolve this matter without the SGF, the Minister of Finance, Head of Accommodation and the DG, Budget Office. Patients are dying due to lack of medical attention. We met afore and there was a template we reached on how to implement it; and much has to do with the relinquishment of funds to pay the salaries and other benefits of the medicos,” he integrated.
According to records afore the committee, regime is expected to pay an estimated N6.7bn in accumulated entitlements to the striking medicos in the interim.
However, the Nigerian Medical Association made it clear to the committee that the authentic bone of contention was not mazuma but the decision of the Federal Regime to throw open the headship of hospitals to those it described as non-medical medicos.
The NMA couched the contentious dispute over the management of hospitals under the denomination of “relativity and skipping.”
Medical medicos and other health sector workers have consistently dissented over who should head hospitals or be appointed as Deputy Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee and consultants.
Speaking on behalf of the association, the NMA President, Dr. Kayode Obembe, told the committee that until the issue of relativity and skipping was addressed, the medicos would not call off the strike.
“Relativity and skipping is not negotiable; it must be resolved or medicos will not return to work. The tradition of medicine is being challenged perilously in this country. That is the major issue and not mazuma,” he insisted.
According to him, there is a push to an incipient era where medicos will no longer take the final decision in the “clinical management of a patient.”
“The tradition everywhere in the world is that the medico is in charge. Today, the challenge is that the medico can no longer lead the clinical management of the patient,” Obembe verbalized.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Onyebuchi Chukwu, and the Minister of Labour/Productivity, Emeka Worgu, who withal attended the session, appealed to the NMA to suspend the strike for some weeks while negotiations to resolve the matter perpetuated.
But, Obembe responded that granting the request was beyond his potencies because only the Emergency Delegate Meeting of the association could call for a strike or call it off.
He explicated that the EDM was composed of the 36 state chapters of the NMA and the Federal Capital Territory.
In a bid to get the NMA to suspend the strike afore Thursday, the House committee extracted a commitment from the health minister to review the content of a July 4 circular, which verbalized regime had rescinded its decision on the appointment of CMACs.
“If putting it that way for the sake of tautology, will address the quandary, it will be done, Chukwu assured the Elumelu committee.
The NMA had verbalized that reviewing the circular would reassure the association that regime would not outsmart the medicos as they waited for the report of the Ahmed Yayale Presidential Committee on the dispute between medicos and other health sector personnel.
While rounding off Monday’s meeting, Elumelu had observed that the strike was entirely dispensable if the main issue was the quarrel between medicos and non-medicos.
“We at the House were under the impression that it was all about your entitlements. Now, you are verbally expressing mazuma is not the issue, but relativity and skipping. If that is the case, there should have been no strike. You should go back to work while negotiations perpetuate with the head of accommodation and other germane officials of regime,” he integrated.
Elumelu later told heralds that the committee was optimistic that the NMA would suspend the strike afore Thursday as a replication to Monday’s deliberations.
