Lagos doctors embark on 3-day warning strike

…The doctors want additional pay and adequate protective kits

The Doctors in Lagos have embarked on a three-day warning strike on Monday concerning the matters of wellbeing and short supply of protective kits.

The strike however does not affect those handling coronavirus cases.

The industrial action is the latest in a sequence of walkouts by the medical practitioners in the Nigeria’s largest city as the efforts to curtail the coronoavirus infections heighten.

Doctors under the auspices of the Medical Guild Association disclosed they resolved to embark on strike following the failure of the Lagos State Government to attend to their demands for additional salary and better protection.

“The issue of COVID-19 hazard allowances and inducement allowances… approved by the federal government to the doctors has not been approved by Lagos government to her doctors,” leader Oluwajimi Sodipo said in a statement.

Read also: Resident doctors call off nationwide strike

He stated the strike would not include members working in coronavirus isolation wards despite a backlog in their wages.

“Doctors working in COVID-19 isolation centres are still being owed two months salaries which have remained unpaid at the moment,” he said.

“Our members are putting themselves on the line daily to provide care, and we need to do everything to protect our colleagues.”

The statement admonished government to offer adequate personal protective equipment, prompt testing of health workers and insurance.

Lagos, which accounts for 20 million people out of the country’s population has the highest number of COVID-19 cases.

More than 800 health workers have been infected by the virus, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

The nation’s main doctors under the auspices of Nigerian Medical Association have launched or threatened a series of strikes during the pandemic over wellbeing and protection.