NARD fumes as Kaduna govt hospital sacks resident doctors

The National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has condemned the sack of some of its members by the management of the Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital, Kaduna.

The leader of the North-West Zonal chapter, Abbas Ajayi, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Kaduna that the sack was unwarranted and unexpected.

The News Agency of Nigeria recalls that the management of the hospital on Monday terminated the appointment of the resident doctors in a letter signed by the Director of Administration, Illiyasu Yusuf.

The management claimed that the resident doctors had exceeded their allowable duration of training and had reportedly shown a lack of academic progress.

This, the management maintained, was as it was stipulated in Sections 2 and 3 of the regulations governing residency training programme of the hospital.

The letter also urged the resident doctors to refund N501,000, being 50 per cent of their June to December medical residency training fund paid to them and hand over all properties in their possession.

Mr Ajayi condemned the act, sayin flow charts for training were non-existent at the hospital.

He said: “People will spend additional years in training for no fault of theirs
Some people will keep your proposal for months and not attend to it and then the resident is to blame every time.”

According to Mr Ajayi, anytime the residents embark on strike, they will start sending sack letters.

He said, “The interesting thing about this BDTH is that they are just eight years in residency.

“Someone needs to tell the CMD that it’s impossible for anyone to have overstayed residency in his centre if they started in 2018.”

Also speaking, the chairperson of the hospital’s NARD chapter, Josiah Yakubu, said, so far, six of the resident doctors had received their termination letters from the management.

He added that from February to date, five doctors had resigned and more were going, saying, “this is because they have gotten a better offer in states such as Kano, Katsina and Nasarawa.

Mr Yakubu said, ”In a residency programme, one is trained to become a specialist and has to go for posting before writing his examination, both the first stage and second stage.

“But because we are understaffed, where you can find four or two doctors in a department, one will be due for posting and will be delayed by the management with excuses while rotations are also being delayed.”

He added that the association held a meeting with the Secretary to the State Government on Tuesday with the hope of negotiations.

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Mr Yakubu said, “But we were told to call off the strike first. The government also threatened us with no work, no pay.

“All we are asking is for the government to hear us and meet our needs.

“With this action, they are telling us that they don’t appreciate us. Let them bring back our members and employ more.”

Reacting, the State Commissioner for Health, Umma Ahmed, told NAN on Wednesday that “an agreement has just been reached between the state government and NARD, so they will be immediately reinstated.”

“The meeting that was held at the Office of the Secretary to the State Government was successful and an amicable resolution has been reached between both parties.”

(NAN)