Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom, has appealed to resident doctors to suspend their ongoing strike to pave the way for dialogue.
Ortom who made the appeal while receiving members of the Benue State University, BSU, branch of Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria, MDCAN, at Benue People’s House, yesterday, also requested the consultants to appeal to the striking doctors to return to work so that discussion on the issues bothering them could commence.
A statement signed by the Senior Special Assistant Media, Godwin Akor said, the governor urged the resident doctors to consider the plight of millions of Benue people and the sick ones and described their services as humanitarian.
He said there is no amount of pay that could be commensurate to the volume of work they do and explained that the state government throws every month allocation open for scrutiny by stakeholders including labour leaders in the spirit of transparency.
The governor promised to look into the issue of payment of relativity allowance to the consultants and assured that other issues presented by them would be treated as finances of the state improve.
He said his government has made giant strides in the areas of education, health and infrastructure and hinted that he would set up a committee which would liaise with the consultants so that the process of selecting new chief medical director for the Benue State Teaching Hospital kick starts as the tenure of the present one draws to an end.
Earlier, the Chairman, BSU chapter of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria, Professor Godwin Terver Jombo requested for partnership with the state government in the area of execution of health projects and assured that they were ready to render services in the rural areas with the provision of adequate logistics.
