The Federal Government on Friday in Abuja challenged striking Doctors under the aegis of Nigerian Medical Association to a "high-powered debate" before the public on the contentious issues concerning the alleged breach of agreement which led to the ongoing nationwide strike.
The government which stated that it has intensified serious surveillance in the nation's borders and points of entry to check influx of migrants having the dreaded Ebola virus, also said it had fulfilled its own part of the bargain by 100 per cent and wondered why the NMA leadership would still be flexing muscles after signing a Memorandum of Understanding.The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, stated this in an interview with journalists during the signing of $15 million agreement with Norwegian government which was offered to Nigeria for the upscaling of Maternal and Child Health.He said, "The update on the strike is that they (NMA) have signed the second MoU with us on July 3.
For two times now, they have said they would call off the strike; they have signed. I don't know, when someone gives you a cheque, you are expected to go and cash your money."When asked if government had truly fulfilled its part of the bargain, he replied, "absolutely, 100 percent absolutely and that is why I said we should have a high-powered debate before the Nigerian public. Let each side state what their issues are, let's take it one by one. I am assuring Nigerians that as their Minister of Health, on my honour, the Federal Government, led by President Goodluck Jonathan has done what it ought to do."That is why they signed an MoU.
Why will you sign an MoU when you are not satisfied with the negotiation? These two negotiations took place for over 24 hours; that is a whole day without sleep."Chukwu also spoke on efforts being put in place by government towards containing the dreaded Ebola virus.He said, "In the case of Nigeria, we are carrying out surveillance through our Port Health Services at the point of entry. You know, again, because of the way Nigerian land borders are, sometimes you do have leakages where people just walk across through unauthorized border areas."We are trying to see how we will be working with other agencies because we can't do it alone. We need to work with the Ministry of Agriculture which is currently monitoring the migrant populace.
You know people migrate from one reason or the other; they are already monitoring some of them, especially those who are nomad pastoralists."We need to work with the Ministry of Interior in terms of checking our borders. What we do is that we watch out for people coming in from these areas, especially people who are travelling from Central Africa. When they come into Nigeria, we need to ensure that we monitor and track them to ensure that even when they have fever, we'll now make sure that it's fever and nothing else."
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