Doctors who fail to resume work today will be sacked – Federal Government threatens doctors over strike.

The Federal government has threatened to sack medical doctors in its payroll who fail to appear at their duty posts today being Wednesday.

To this end, the government has directed all Chief Medical Directors, CMDs, of its hospitals to open a record-keeping register between 7am and 12 noon each day, beginning from Wednesday, insisting that those who fail to show up for work would be identified and appropriately dealt with.

The government’s threat which came through the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, was a fallout of a meeting convened at the instance of the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, to negotiate with the striking doctors under the aegis of National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, with a view to resolving the issues that led to declaration of strike, Monday by the latter.

The negotiation meeting, which started at about 1 pm on Tuesday and lasted several hours ended in deadlock as members of the association led, by its National President, Dr Aliyu Socumba, angrily stormed out of the meeting.

He threatened that the doctors would only suspend the ongoing action within 24 hours if the government bring something tangible on the table.

The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire who was probably angry by the decision of the NARD leadership to storm out of the meeting said a directive would be issued to medical directors of all the hospitals to open a register to collect records of all who report to work and those who did not.

While briefing journalists on the outcome of the meeting he said the government has an obligation to protect the lives of Nigerians who are suffering from one illness or the other.