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Lagos doctors have
criticised the state government for “insulting the medical profession”,
vowing to continue with the ongoing industrial action, after an
emergency congress yesterday.

The strike embarked
on by the Medical Guild, comprising of doctors employed by the state
government, is going to four weeks, and the congress still saw an
overwhelming vote in favour of the continuation of the strike. Edamisan
Temiye, the Chairman, Nigerian Medical Association, Lagos Chapter,
described the state government’s attempt to demote the striking doctors
as “retrogressive” and “unacceptable”. The doctors are pressing for the
implementation of agreements reached with the state government to pay
the Consolidated Medical Salary (CONMESS), among other issues, but the
state government was said to have offered to demote the workers before
the agreements to be met.

“It is sad the
Lagos state government is not only reneging on its promise but also
engaging in the blackmail of the medical profession,” he said, accusing
the state government of breaking the labour law. “If you are on step
nine on a particular level, they now demote you to step two, and earn a
salary of step two worker. So all the seven years you’ve gained, you
will lose and get stuck at that step two for ‘only God knows how long’.
They have demoted doctors’ level in the state; some are losing up to
N160 000 compared to their counterparts working across the road or in
other hospitals; and that is unacceptable.”

Sack threats

Mr Temiye also
described as ‘insulting’, the state government’s allegation that the
ongoing strike was politically motivated, adding that doctors in
federal hospitals across the state would soon be joining their
colleagues in state hospitals, on a solidarity strike. Reacting to a
recent call for the sack of all striking doctors by the state’s former
governor, Bola Tinubu, he said the state doctors are currently
overworked and that it would be impossible to find replacements should
the doctors be dismissed from service. “We believe it’s a threat and it
will remain so, and if they go ahead and sack the doctors, we will see
how they are going to replace them,” he said. “Lagos State has less
than one-third of the doctors they employ, so there no enough doctors
in the first instance. I don’t see any doctor working somewhere else
and coming to Lagos State to pick slave wages when he can get something
else better.”

No going back

Ayobode Williams,
the Medical Guild chairman, said the doctors would continue to stay
away from work until the state government honours the agreement it
reached with them. “Our agitations still remain the same because the
state government has still not fulfilled their own side of the
bargain,” he said. “The congress has voted and said that the strike
would continue, not until the government implements CONMESS to the
letter and reinstate our past chairman (Ibrahim Olaifa), and the tax
issues that we requested for.”

At the congress, 336 doctors had voted in favour of the continuation
of the strike, while 38 doctors voted against its continuation; 11
doctors abstained from voting.