The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has asked doctors in Federal Hospitals in Osun State to join their striking counterparts working for the state government to demand for the payment of their salaries.
Rising from an emergency meeting in Osogbo, the state capital, the State Chairman of the NMA, Dr. Suraj Ogunyemi, said that the 3-day warning strike scheduled to commence on February 17 would help the striking doctors press for October till December salaries, a reduction of their tax deductions and implementation of the CONTISS salary scale.
Dr. Ogunyemi, who stressed that the doctors in the course of negotiations have had to shift grounds on many of their demands, insisted that the doctors would only resume duty if government is committed to paying up their salaries and acceding to their other demands.
In reaction to this, media aide to Governor Rauf Aregbesola, Semiu Okanlawon, claimed that the government has also sacrificed to ensure both parties arrive at a logical end.
He said that the state government has agreed to pay the doctors their outstanding salaries upon resumption.
Giving the assurance that good reasoning would prevail at the end of the dialogue, Okanlawon appealed to the striking doctors to reason with government, especially in the face of the current financial status of the state.