The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, has appealed to the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) to call off its strike in the interest of the nation.
The Sultan made the call at the Usman DanFodio University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto during the 20th annual general meeting and scientific conference of the Association of Paediatric Surgeons of Nigeria (APSON).
He noted that as a profession that caters for human health, it should have exhausted all available channels of dialogue before embarking on the strike.
He said: “I’m a firm believer of dialogue. Let me ask you as a doctor, you took the Hippocratic oath to save lives, how will you feel when your patients die because you are on strike?”
The monarch stressed that strike is not a last resort, adding that the resident doctors should have consulted people like them who have the ear of the government before embarking on strike.
In his goodwill message, the Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, said his government has prioritized the health sector because of the importance attached to it.
Represented by the Commissioner for Health, Dr Ali Inname, Tambuwal said his administration is constructing a teaching hospital and three specialist hospitals in the three senatoral districts of the state to render tertiary health care delivery to the people.
He further stated that some general hospitals in the state have also been upgraded in order to provide better health care services.
Tambuwal used the opportunity to state that the state has recorded zero case of COVID-19 in the last 165 days.
