The Ondo State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association has threatened to embark on industrial action if the state government fails to fulfil its promise to review the hazard allowance of its members.

The NMA lamented that for a long time, the doctors practicing in the government-owned hospitals in the state were paid a sum of N5,000 as hazard allowance, and the state government had approved the upward review of the allowance, but there was no implementation yet.

Speaking on the NMA 2023 Physicians’ Week on Monday in Akure, the state capital, the chairman of the Ondo NMA, Dr Omosehin Adeyemi-Osowe, noted that the state government had promised to pay the money this week, failure of which might lead to another industrial action.

” We have many challenges in Ondo NMA, one of them is that we lack personnel. Recently we heard in the news that over 1000 health workers would be employed by the state government. We are still waiting for the recruitment exercise to commence. Another challenge is our allowances, we have had a review recently, and before that review, the hazard allowance has been reviewed upward, before the review of that hazard allowance what we receive as doctors is N5,000.

“This has been reviewed by the Federal Government but up till this moment, Ondo State has not implemented it, but we know that it has been approved, we were promised that there would be implementation in Ondo State, but up till this moment we are yet to perceive the implementation. As of last Friday, the government through the Permanent Secretary on establishment promised that on or before the end of tomorrow (Wednesday) a circular would be out, we are waiting,” he said.

According to him, members of the association may not hesitate to go on strike if the implementation of the reviewed allowance is not paid before Friday this week.

“I want to tell the government that at the end of this week, and we do not have that circular, well, it would not be bad for Ondo State Nigeria Medical Association of doctors to go on strike at the end of this week if we do not have the circular for the implementation of the hazard allowance in Ondo State, the federal workers have been enjoying this since last year, from December 2021, the Federal Government has cleared all the federal workers allowance, they have paid their workers up till today,” he noted.