By VINCENT UJUMADU
AWKA—DOCTORS in the employ of Anambra State government yesterday called off their 13 months old strike.

The action was suspended when it apparently became obvious that the state government was not ready to shift ground on the 60 percent salary increase it offered the doctors when the strike began last year.

The Medical Association, NMA, in the state, headed by Dr. Emmanuel Ekwesianya and the state government team, headed by Secretary to the State Government, Chief Paul Odenigbo, signed the agreement in Awka calling off the strike.

The doctors embarked on the strike over the state government’s alleged refusal to implement the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure, CONMESS, approved for doctors working in government-owned hospitals in the country.

Ekwesianya said despite efforts to make government shift ground, it remained rigid on the 60 percent increase it offered to pay the doctors when negotiations began.

He said the doctors decided to call off the strike in the interest of the patients, adding that it was not good for the doctors to remain as rigid as government on the issue as people were suffering.

“We are serving the people and not government and we observe that it is the people that have continued to suffer over the past 13 months the doctors have been on strike,” he said.

The NMA chairman explained that a technical committee, headed by Professor O.O, Mbonu, had been set up to work out ways of smooth practice in the hospitals and urged all the striking doctors to go back to work immediately.

Vanguard recalls that negotiations between the doctors and government broke down as the two parties could not agree on the issue.

While government offered to pay 60 percent increase, in view of what it attributed to its poor resources, the NMA insisted that the state was capable of paying the new pay structure.