COVID-19: Abuja doctors on strike over owed allowances

Medical doctors battling the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja, will embark on a strike to press home their demands from Tuesday, September 1, 2020.

The doctors say they haven’t been paid their allowances since June 2020.

In an internal memo made exclusively available to Pulse and signed by Dr Mustapha Ibrahim, who is the General Secretary, Association of Resident Doctors of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), the doctors say the decision to down tools was arrived at during their last meeting of Friday, August 28, 2020.

“This is to inform that we will be embarking on an indefinite strike with effect from 8am on Tuesday, 1st September 2020, following the decision of the EGM dated Friday, 28th August 2020.

“This is for our information and further necessary action please,” the memo reads.

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A typical isolation center in Nigeria (NAN) AFP

One doctor told Pulse last week that “we have been fighting to have them pay our daily inducement allowances which are N50,000 for doctors, N30,000 for nurses, pharmacists and laboratory scientists; and N20,000 for hygienists (cleaners) since June.”

Another doctor who craved anonymity for this story said; "We have not received any payment for COVID-19 inducement allowances for those working at the treatment and isolation centers or hazard allowances for those working in the hospitals."

All healthcare workers at all the COVID-19 isolation centers in Abuja haven't been paid for three months, Pulse has reliably gathered.

Abuja has recorded the most COVID-19 cases in Nigeria after the commercial capital city of Lagos.