Lagos doctors declare 3-day warning strike over unpaid COVID-19 allowances

TRACKING____Doctors in Lagos State under the umbrella of Medical Guild have declared a three-day warning strike beginning from today Monday over unpaid COVID-19 allowances, welfare package and new wage by the Lagos State Government.

Chairman of Medical Guild, Dr. Oluwajimi Sodipo, who made this known in Lagos yesterday, said the strike, which will start from 8a.m. today to 8a.m.

Thursday will exclude frontline health workers working at the isolation centres in the state.
Also, a former Chairman of the Medical Guild, Dr. Babajide Saheed, who is an ex-officio of the Medical Guild, said if the Lagos State Government could still issue a circular stating how it would intervene between Sunday and Monday morning, the strike would still be averted.

Sodipo said if the government had met 70 per cent of the Medical Guild demands, the strike would have been averted.

Medical Guild is the association of medical doctors employed by the Lagos State Government and an affiliate of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA).

Some of the unresolved demands of the Medical Guild included the state giving attention to the wage disparity between the Federal and Lagos State doctors with a view to bridging it; that the issue of COVID-19 hazard allowances and inducement allowances approved by the Federal Government for doctors working in federal health institutions has not been approved by the Lagos State Government (LASG) for its doctors; and that doctors working in isolation centres in the State were still being owed two months salaries which has remained unpaid at the moment.