The Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) has threatened to embark on strike if the demands of its members are not met in the next 21 days.

This was contained in a communique issued at the end of the association’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting which was held virtually on Tuesday, August 22, 2023.

MDCAN, in the communique signed by its President and Secretary-General, Dr. Victor Makanjuola, and Dr. Yemi Raji, respectively, expressed displeasure with the Federal Government for turning a blind eye to the association’s plight.

The Consultants listed some of their issues to include the inability of the Federal Government to implement jointly agreed upward review of CONMESS and the introduction of accoutrement allowance with the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) which pointed to a recently released circular that only captured the percentage increase on the basic salary, as against applying same to both the basic salaries and all allowances except hazard allowance.

An error was also said to have resulted in the complete exclusion of the clinical lecturers (Honorary Consultants) from benefitting from the upward review. The commencement date for the new circular was agreed to be January 1, 2023, rather than June 1, 2023.

The Consultants, who appealed that the error be corrected without further delay, stressed that this was necessary because the recent upward review of CONMESS did not take into consideration the consequences of the fuel subsidy removal and exponential inflation that has pervaded socio-economic space in the past three months.

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They also lamented that after two years of keeping faith with engagement and negotiations with the National Salaries Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) on correction of the shortfalls in remuneration for Clinical Lecturers (Honorary Consultants), the issue was yet to be conclusively addressed by the Federal Government.

They also observed the non-universal implementation of CONMESS for all Medical and Dental doctors irrespective of the agencies of the government they are working with, “in addition to government’s failure to appreciate the magnitude of the impacts of brain drain in the health sector, as exhibited by the refusal of the National Council on Establishment (NCE) to approve the Federal Ministry of Health’s proposal on upward review of the age of retirement for the Medical and Dental Consultants and other heath workers.”

The Consultants, therefore, demanded the immediate review of the newly revised CONMESS circular and issuance of
a new circular that would reflect the agreed percentage on both the basic salary and other
allowances, apart from hazard allowance to allow clinical lecturers (Honorary Consultants) benefit from the upward review.

They also called for the correction of the error in the commencement of the implementation of the upward review of CONMESS from January 1, 2023, to June 1, 2023, as collectively agreed.

The association equally demanded that the upward review of the CONMESS should take into consideration the impacts of the fuel subsidy removal and the high inflationary trend being experienced.

MDCAN also called for the immediate implementation and circularisation of the agreed modalities for correcting the shortfalls in remunerations of clinical lecturers (Honorary Consultants).

It also appealed for universal applicability of CONMESS to all Medical and Dental doctors, particularly those in the public universities.

The Star