Nigerian public doctors strike over pay and welfare issues

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Frontline doctors in Nigeria's public hospitals began a five-day strike on Friday over unpaid allowances and unresolved welfare concerns, their union said.

Kazeem Odumbaku, secretary general of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), told Reuters the government had failed to meet their demands include disbursing the 2025 medical residency training fund and payment of salary arrears.

The association said repeated negotiations with government officials had failed.

Resident doctors are medical school graduates training as specialists. They are pivotal to frontline healthcare in Nigeria as they dominate the emergency wards in its hospitals.

The union represents around 15,000 resident doctors out of a total of more than 40,000 doctors in the West African nation.

In July, Nigerian nurses embarked on a strike over pay and staffing issues.

Nigerian doctors frequently strike over what they say are poor conditions of service, amid chronic underfunding and mismanagement.

They walked out of their jobs three times in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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