UPDATE 1-Nigerian doctors strike for better benefits during coronavirus crisis

(Adds details, health minister comment)
ABUJA, June 15 (Reuters) - Resident doctors in Nigerian
public hospitals went on strike on Monday to demand better
benefits, including the provision of more protective equipment,
as they battle the coronavirus, the union said.
Those treating COVID-19 patients will stay on the job but
their union, the National Association of Resident Doctors
(NARD), gave the government two weeks to meet the demands or
else they would also walk out.
Resident doctors are those who have graduated from medical
school and are training as specialist consultants. They are
pivotal to frontline healthcare in Nigeria as they dominate the
emergency wards in its hospitals.
Strikes are common in Nigeria's public health system, with
clinicians frequently seeking pay rises and improvements to
under-funded infrastructure to meet the rising burden of
healthcare in the West African country of 200 million people.
"If the government fails to meet our minimum demands within
two weeks, the resident doctors working in (COVID-19) isolation
centres will automatically join the strike," Aliyu Sokomba, the
head of the union, said in a statement.
The resident doctors are seeking a COVID-19 pay supplement
in addition to life insurance for doctors and more funds in the
federal budget for their training, among other demands.
The union has complained about inadequate protective
equipment to treat COVID-19 patients and has said that 10
doctors have died so far from the highly infectious respiratory
disease.
Health Minister Osagie Ehanire told reporters government
officials were holding talks with the union.
Nigeria has had more than 16,000 confirmed cases of the
virus and 420 deaths. Most cases have been in Lagos, sub-Saharan
Africa's biggest city of 20 million inhabitants.
Last month, doctors in Lagos staged a one-day strike over
what they described as police harassment of health workers
trying to move through the city to treat patients during a
coronavirus curfew.