Q&A: No end in sight for Nigerian resident doctors’ strike - Dr. Lawal Ismail Akinlade

Dr. Lawal Ismail Akinlade is the immediate past national president of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) which is currently trading blames with the Nigerian government over the protracted strike that is truncating healthcare services in many tertiary teaching hospitals across Nigeria. 

In this exclusive interview with HealthNewsNG.com, he spoke extensively on the strike – why it was called, the federal government’s blackmail antics and why the association cannot call the strike off now.

HealthNewsNG.com: What is the latest concerning the ongoing strike called by the NARD?

Dr. Lawal: The latest is that the strike will still continue because we’ve not gotten anything tangible from the government. There have been several meetings to reconcile and come to a midway but till date, government has not done anything concerning our requests.

After the last meeting we had, we had another National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of NARD where we assessed what government has done so far. We realized it’s been promises. The dangerous part of it is that we’ve had promises in the past and till date they’ve not fulfilled.

We concluded that until we see those things they’ve promised, that’s when we will believe them and come back to the wards.

At a press briefing, the health minister said the strike embarked upon by NARD is “unnecessary” since his ministry is already working with NARD and Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) to address some of the issues based on which NARD embarked on strike. How would you respond to that?

Two weeks after he made that statement we are still waiting for the promises to materialize. When I was president, we had a meeting with the honorable minister in May last year and we had an agreement on some issues.

One of the issues we are fighting for is that we are requesting for a universal standard that all the teaching hospitals will be using. When you are entering the residency training today, you should know when you are leaving because currently, the medical director can just ask someone who has not attempted the exam once to leave the system because he has spent three-and-a-half years.

At the outset of the strike, no one thought it would go beyond the first week but it is already in the third week now. What can be done to have it called off as soon as possible?

Sincerely speaking, continuation of the strike is just a sign of irresponsibility on the side of the government. Let me tell you those issues in contention. Our people’s salary is number one. Government is saying that people should work for up to 5 months without getting paid for it. Will the issue of salaries and arrears take the government about 4 months to resolve? It’s just the people in charge are not ready to help the masses.

Secondly is the issue of health service training, like a protocol that gives guidelines on a number of pertinent issues including funding. These things are not new. We’ve had meetings and agreements; we’ve had MoU signed. We have the communiqué released at the end of the meeting which they first denied its existence but we had to show them photographs before they could come to accept we had the agreement. That is the level it has degenerated to.

The training is greatly underfunded. Before, about 150 million was budgeted for the training now it is 40 million. There is bound to be crises. People are being owed salaries, call duties and other allowances. The resident doctors have 3 functions in the hospital – they give services, they do research and they undergo training.

If you fail to train people, you fail to train and generate specialists; there won’t be medical consultants again. They’ve seen what is happening locally, go abroad and see what is happening internationally and come back and implement what you’ve seen at the end of the day. This is in order to uplift the health sector in Nigeria.

In Nigeria today, not everyone can afford to travel abroad to access medical care, most especially those of us that are poor. Government officials and politicians might have money to go abroad.

What we are fighting for is for our people, for Nigeria. Let us train specialists, let us train and train them well so that at the end of the day, we can access good and standard healthcare in Nigeria. If all the things are done which I think it shouldn’t take government 2 weeks to resolve, it is just a mere misplacement of priority.

Once they pay salary and they resolve the issue of residency training policy, the strike will be called off. Those issues are quite easy to resolve. Government should some kind of concern for the plight of the citizens so that we can come back to work.

NARD is already being accused by some Nigerians of being high ended, rigid and insensitive  to the plight of the patients since those at the helm of affairs in this country rarely use our health facilities thus are not directly affected by the ongoing strike.

Apart from the salary we are demanding, the issue of training, whether directly or indirectly, the citizens will benefit. You may have money to go to India when you have headache and they will do some scans for you to know what the cause is. At the end of the day they will remove it. In Nigeria today how many people can afford treatment locally talk less of travelling abroad. We need to help our people, let us train doctors in Nigeria so that they can take care of the citizens.

What has the government done that they believe that doctors should go back to call off the strike? They’ve not paid people’s salaries, they’ve not resolved the issue of residency training; they’ve resolved the issues in Enugu and Owerri. They’ve not addressed any of the issues to an extent that NARD will say the government has done its own part and the strike should be called off.

According to the minister, NARD members don’t trust the ministry. He said money has been released but your members are still waiting for bank alerts on their mobile phones before they believe.

He made that statement two weeks ago. What does that imply for Nigerian banks to distribute the money to doctors’ accounts? I don’t believe the claim. If he said the money was disbursed last week and it is yet to get to people’s accounts, we should ask questions.

Strike is getting quite synonymous with the Nigerian health sector. Just before the NARD embarked on strike, several other members of the health team were also on strike. These strikes are having negative impacts on healthcare delivery in Nigeria. Are the healthcare professionals getting too demanding, or is the government being inept and insensitive?

Our demands are reasonable. Salary should be a thing of recurrent expenditure. Do we need to beg people to pay salaries? They are not paying from their personal money; they are paying from Nigeria’s money. The training demand is for the benefit of all Nigerians.

When do you think strikes in the health sector would be brought to an end?

Whenever we have a responsible government, there won’t be any strike. Before this strike, we gave them many months to work on our demands. We had a three-day warning strike to draw the attention of the government to the issues. Despite that, nothing was done.

What is the level of involvement of the various NARD chapters because various sources are claiming that some chapters are not joining the strike?

The strike is total and we have close to 100% cooperation. Don’t forget that during the plane crash in Lagos, we had to give our Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) chapter order to treat the victims. The strike is not for all doctors, it’s just the resident doctors. Other cadres of doctors have the mandate to work. The consultants are there, those people in state hospitals are not affected by the strike; it’s only; It is also only resident doctors in teaching hospitals that are affected.