10 Ways To End Doctors’ Strikes ‘FOREVER’ in Nigeria

*The establishment of a clearly defined, mutually agreed condition of service for doctors, is the single most dramatic step in halting doctors strikes in Nigeria.
The UK NHS is the biggest government run health service in the world. There is a distinct code of service for doctors, entirely separate from the civil service.
Let’s look at the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook. There are seven parts.
Part 2 deals with PAY: pay structure, maintaining round the clock services, overtime payments, pay in high cost areas, recruitment and retention premia, career and pay progression.
Part 3 deals with Terms and Conditions of Service: hours of the working week, part time employees and fixed time contracts, contractual continuity of care, annual leave and general public holidays, sickness absence, maternity leave and pay, redundancy pay, travel cost reimbursement, subsistence allowances, mutually agreed (their words) resignation schemes, whistleblowing and injury allowance.
One can see from the above why there was no doctors strike in the UK for 37 years! After a strike in 1975, that of June 2012 was a mere 24 hour revolt to highlight pension disagreements.
*Legitimate Collective Bargaining Agreements, CBAs, must be respected and implemented in a timely manner. The courts, and mutually agreed arbitration panels, must be involved.
*The importance of ethics must be integrated into the profession, the government and employers. ALL parties have a moral obligation to society.
* The profession must resist the impulse to make economic demands beyond the capacity of the employer (government) or which could hinder the provision of other services like education or public utilities. Doctors have a duty of care to patients, while government has a duty of care to the public. Fortunately, or unfortunately, they are one and the same. Some demands may also require legislation by the National Assembly; this will take time.
* Government should resist the urge to arbitrarily call certain groups of workers as “essential services” so as to deny them a right to strike. In fact, if such workers are considered “essential” then they deserve a separate mechanism of pay and service conditions.
* Both parties must put forward trained and skilled negotiators.
* Government must avoid threats of unjustifiable disciplinary action.
* The media, TV, newspapers, radio, and social media is crucial to ALL parties in communicating with the general public. To garner public support and understanding, disagreements and agreements must be transparent.
* The NMA should embark on a major membership drive to include ALL registered Nigerian doctors. These members should be regularly surveyed, balloted and informed on all matters being discussed on their behalf.
* Finally the MDCN, the doctors’ regulatory body, has a duty in restoration of respect to the profession. There is a feeling that professional standing may have been diminished by repeated strikes in the past. The MDCN can encourage and accredit more CPD activities in the fields of management and administration. They can design and monitor a code of standards of good medical practice in Nigeria.