Lagos State Commissioner of Health, Jide Idris
The Lagos State Government may sanction its doctors, who participating in the ongoing strike in the state.
This came as the state has opened attendance register for all the doctors in its employ.
A resident doctor, who spoke on
condition of anonymity for the fear of being victimised by the
authorities at the General Hospital, Lagos Island, confirmed the planned
sanction.
He said, “They are saying any doctor
that does not sign the register while the strike lasts will not be paid.
They are even threatening to sack us. The locum doctors were told that
their contract would be terminated. They just want to scare us from
demanding what is rightfully ours. They should pay us our salaries.”
The Chairman of the guild, Dr. Biyi
Kufo, also confirmed the development, saying no threat or sanction would
stop them from demanding their unpaid salaries.
Kufo, who accused the state government
of ‘double standards’, claimed it paid the Joint Health Sector Union
members when they embarked on strike last December and January.
He added, “This action is the
unfortunate result of a seven and-a-half month long campaign against
oppression and victimisation in which the guild went to exhaustive
lengths to resolve our stated issues without going on strike.
“This administration continues to exhibit its blatant double standards in its response to this action.
“The government has set about a campaign
of intimidation and harassment of members of the guild, setting up
registers, and directing that certain books be filled.
“The government took none of these steps while members of the Joint Health Sector Unions were on strike.”
Doctors under the aegis of the Medical
Guild have been at loggerheads with the government over the non-payment
of their May 2012 as well as August/September 2014 salaries.
The salaries were withheld under the ‘no
work, no pay’ policy after the guild joined its parent body, the NMA,
on a nationwide strike last July. They were protesting against issues
bordering on relativity and other appointments in the sector.
To protest the action, the doctors embarked on a three-day warning strike in February.
Not satisfied with the government’s response to their demands, the aggrieved doctors commenced a full-scale action on Monday.
The state government has since described the industrial action as illegal.
The Commissioner for Information, Lateef
Aderogba, who, in a statement on Monday, said the government would not
go back on its ‘no work, no pay policy’, accused the protesting workers
of making unlawful demands.
Aderogba stated, “It is has come to our
attention that some doctors under the aegis of the Medical Guild have
begun yet another strike. We want to stress for public information that
the strike is an illegal action.
“They went on sympathy strike with the
NMA which had a dispute with the Federal Government. They (the doctors)
did not have any dispute with the state government (their employer).
“It is a fact that those who joined the
strike were not paid during the period. This ‘no work, no pay rule’ is
in line with international practices and the Trade Disputes Act, which
is binding on all authorities and persons in Nigeria.”
Meanwhile, the striking doctors have accused the authorities of victimising them by asking them to sign the attendance register.
According to them, other trade unions,
which had embarked on industrial actions in the past, did not face such
threat of sacking.
The threat of sacking may have started
working as doctors were seen attending to patients at the Lagos State
University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja on Monday and Tuesday.
At the Outpatient, Paediatric and the
emergency departments of the hospital, our correspondent observed many
queues in the units.
It is not the first time the state government would be taking disciplinary actions against doctors.
It had dismissed 788 doctors, who participated in a three-day warning strike between April 11 and 13 in 2012.
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