Date: 2016-09-26

The management of University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), may commence the implementation of the "No Work, No Pay" directive of the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), against striking members of National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) UITH Branch.

Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Professor Abdulwaheed Olatinwo, yesterday in a chat with The Guardian, said: "Unless we get a counter directive from the Federal Government, ownes of the UITH, the NARD members shunning job may not be paid."

But Olatinwo who believed that the doctors would not aggravate the development, urged them to return to work as the management would please its employer on every issue in conformity with the Civil Service Rule.

Sources informed The Guardian that some medical elders at the UITH may be giving covert support to the NARD against the management. However, the UITH management has constituted a negotiation committee to dialogue with NARD, with a view to putting an end to the strike.

The local NARD is protesting the non-payment of certain allowances to its members. The strike now in its second week, is being viewed by the management as an antithesis, citing the Hippocratic Oath, sworn to by medical doctors. Chairman of the negotiation committee, Professor Timothy Adedoyin, told The Guardian in Ilorin, "We met on Wednesday with the NARD officials. In fact we got to the point that the strike would be called off. But I think the NARD congress scuttled it." Reacting to the development, the local NARD

President of NARD, UITH, Dr Ade Faponle, in his reaction said, "If there is economic recession, it should not be the UITH doctors who should bear the brunt to the exclusion of other health workers of the same status."