Resident doctors in two teaching hospitals in Bayelsa State on Tuesday confirmed their withdrawal of services in compliance to a directive from the national leadership of National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD).

It was learnt that medical services at Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Yenagoa and Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital (NDUTH) have been hampered with few consultants rendering skeletal services.

Dr Divine Irole, President of Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) at FMC said that members of the association totally complied with the directives and were awaiting further instructions from the national leadership of the union.

“Feedback from the monitoring exercise conducted by my executive indicates that the compliance is 100 per cent. We have downed tools and the few consultants are providing skeletal services.

“A lot of patients have already been discharged. The consultants cannot cope with the number of patients so they have to be discharged. The truth is that bulk of the work in the health sector is done predominantly by resident doctors,” Irole said.

On whether the position of services by consultants was a threat to ongoing strike, Irole noted that the association does not see the action of the consultants as sabotage as they were very few in number.

“Residents do not see consultants’ services as sabotage. Consultants are not on strike but there is very little they can do without resident doctors because the consultants are very few, that is why a lot of patients have been discharged,” Irole said.

Similarly, Dr Oru-Oru Inetsol, President of ARD at NDUTH said the consultants' roles were not in conflict with the interest of resident doctors.

He said that ARD members were observing the strike.

NARD directed its members nationwide to proceed on an indefinite strike to demand the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding it entered into with the federal government in March 2021.

Meanwhile, Minister of Labour, Dr Chris Ngige, had on Monday expressed shock that the NARD had embark on another strike after holding a similar successful evaluation meeting with him last week.