Sultan Urges NARD to Call off Strike
Sa’ad Abubakar
Onuminya Innocent in Sokoto
The Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, has called on National Association of Resident Doctor (NARD) to call off strike in the interest of the nation.
The Sultan made the call at Usman DanFodio University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto at the 20th annual general meeting and scientific conference of the Association of Paediatric Surgeons of Nigeria (APSON).
Sultan noted that as a profession that caters for human health it should have exhausted all available channels of dialogue before embarking on the strike.
“I’m a firm believer of dialogue, let me ask you as a doctor you took a hippocratic oath to save life, how will you feel when your patients die because you are on strike? He asked.
He maintained that the strike was not a last resort saying the resident doctors should have consulted people like them who have the ear of the government before embarking on strike.
In his goodwill message, Governor of Sokoto State Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, said his government had prioritised the health sector because of the importance attached to it.
Represented by the Commissioner of Health, Dr. Ali Inname, Tambuwal said his administration was constructing a teaching hospital, three specialist hospitals in the three senatorial districts of the state to render tertiary healthcare delivery to the people.
He further stated that some general hospitals in the state had also been upgraded in order to provide better healthcare services.
He used the opportunity to announce that Sokoto State had recorded zero cases of COVID-19 in the past 165 days.
Earlier the National President of APSON, Prof. Auwal Abubakar, called on the government to establish specialist hospitals in the six geopolitical zones for the children.
According to him, the call for the establishment of specialist hospitals for children across Nigeria would not only afford specialists in the field to address the increasing cases of trauma in children but also help in tackling the high mortality and morbidity rate in the country.
Abubakar who is also Chief Medical Director of Federal Medical Centre Yola, advocated for adoption of free medical care for children to improve on the nation’s health indices as it is done in advanced nations.
In his address the Chief Medical Director of Usman DanFodio University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH) Sokoto, Prof. Anas Sabir, thanked the association for giving Sokoto a hosting right.
