Again, the Federal Government has ordered the
sacking of over 14,000 striking resident doctors in the country.

The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, in a circular signed by a permanent secretary in the ministry, Amina Shamaki, issued a directive to chief medical
directors and medical directors of all the
government–owned tertiary health institutions to fill
the vacancies created by resident doctors who had
‘abandoned’ their programme.

The circular also stated that the Federal Government
would be constituting a panel by the registrar of the
National Postgraduate Medical College, Ijanikin,
Lagos, Prof. Wole Atoyebi to review postgraduate
training of doctors in the country.

After several industrial actions in the year, resident
doctors in government-owned hospitals embarked
on an indefinite nationwide strike on Monday.

The circular reads, “It has come to the notice of the management of the ministry that some resident doctors in your establishment have voluntarily withdrawn from the residency training programme by refusing to report for training without
authorisation.

“This is in spite of the ongoing negotiations on their
demands put forward by the representatives of the
National Association of Resident Doctors under the
auspices of the Nigerian Medical Association.

“In view of this development, you are hereby directed to replace all the doctors that have withdrawn their services, with others from the pool of applicants for the training programmes in the various disciplines in order not to create ominous gap in training with attendant disruption of health care delivery in your facility. Please, ensure immediate compliance.”

The Federal Government sacked over 15,000 resident doctors in 2014 for embarking on a nationwide strike that lasted for over six months during the Ebola outbreak.