NMA accuses LASG of propaganda

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The Lagos State Chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association(NMA), on Tuesday, condemned the purported reinstatement of 34 sacked doctors by the state government.

Speaking to journalists in Lagos, the state NMA Chairman, Edamisan Temiye, described the reinstatement as “government propaganda”, saying the reinstated doctors were never sacked by the state government.

He said that the doctors purportedly taken back were those on leave during the period that the ongoing crisis began.

“We have it on authority that these doctors were neither sacked nor queried,” he said.

The state government had earlier dismissed 788 striking doctors from its employment, following their failure to answer queries issued to them after embarking on a three-day warning strike.

Following their dismissal, the doctors have since filed a suit at the National Industrial Court, Ikoyi, to challenge government’s action.

Various meetings arranged by organised bodies to broker peace between the two parties in dispute have met with no success.

Temiye blamed the state government for the continued deadlock in the recent negotiations.

“The governor is not ready to act. Is it possible for the Head of Service and the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital(LASUTH) board to sack all its consultants without his approval?” He asked.

Federal doctors in the state have since gone on a solidarity strike to challenge the treatment of their colleagues in state-owned hospitals.

Temiye however said that the indefinite strike would continue.

According to him, government’s continued delay to reinstate all the affected doctors would further escalate the crisis.

The Chairman of the Medical Guild, the umbrella body of the sacked doctors, Olumuyiwa Odusote, said the 34 reinstated doctors had been instructed to stay away from work until all affected doctors are called back.

“The medical guild was on strike before most of us were sacked and that strike, to my understanding, has not been called off,”he said.

Meanwhile, the NMA has announced plans to convene a national emergency meeting on June 2, 2012, to discuss their next line of action.

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