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Your Demands Are “Simply Impossible”: Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola says to Striking Doctors

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If the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola’s comment regarding the ongoing doctors’ strike in the state is anything to go by, then the strike may go on longer than expected.

Doctors in Lagos state have been on an indefinite strike since April 25, 2012, shutting down activities at state owned hospitals. This is to press home their demand for payment of the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure, CONMESS.

The doctors earlier went on a three-day warning strike between April 11th to 13th to press home the same demands and resorted to an indefinite strike when those demands were not met.

The doctors remain unyielding in their stance and have refused to go back to work until the demands are met. The strike, which is already one week old is having negative consequences on residents as most of the people have been unable to get access to affordable and quality health care.

There has been no news of negotiations between the doctors and the state government, but rather, a plan by the Lagos state government to recruit new doctors to replace the striking ones as revealed by the Chairman, Lagos State Medical Advisory Committee to the State Governor, Dr. Ore Falomo recently.

In a new development, Vanguard news reports that Babatunde Fashola has described the doctors demands as “impossible”.

Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, yesterday, appealed to the striking doctors in the state to return to work, insisting that their demands were “simply impossible.”

He reminded them that money may come and go but “live lost cannot be replaced.”

The governor also implored the doctors to return to work if only for the sake of residents, especially the sick ones whose lives are at risk due to the strike.

Fashola, who made the remarks at the commemoration of his administration’s 1,800 days in office, in Ikeja, said he would not interfere in local governments’ administration in the state the same way he would not want the president to interfere in his administration.

The governor, however, disclosed plans in the short-term to build Primary Health Centres, PHCs, in collaboration with the councils that would deliver 24 hours services to the residents of Lagos. Both governments are committed to this project. Both governments have also jointly committed itself to a reliable primary education.”

The doctors seem unperturbed in their resolve to get their demands met before they return to work. They have resolved to continue with the strike until CONMESS is fully applied as their salary structure. And here is the state governor saying their demands are impossible.

Who will then budge at the end of the day? The doctors or the state government?

In this fight between the two parties, it’s the patients that eventually suffer the resulting consequences.

News Source: Vanguard News

Adeola Adeyemo is a graduate of Industrial Relations and Personnel Management from University of Lagos. However, her passion is writing and she worked as a reporter with NEXT Newspaper. She believes that anything can be written about; anything can be a story depending on the angle it is seen from and the writer's imagination. When she is not writing news or feature articles, she slips into her fantasies and creates interesting fiction pieces. She blogs at www.deolascope.blogspot.com

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