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Tag: JOHESU strike

  • Medical Lab Guild urges LASG to resolve JOHESU strike

    Medical Lab Guild urges LASG to resolve JOHESU strike

    The Lagos State Chapter of the Guild of Medical Laboratory Directors (GMLD) has called on the Lagos State Government to urgently intervene in the ongoing industrial action by the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU), warning that continued disruption could endanger the health and lives of residents.

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    In a statement, GMLD Lagos expressed concern that the strike, which has led to the withdrawal of services at critical screening centres, is significantly affecting laboratory testing essential for safe blood transfusions and effective patient care. The Guild highlighted that delays in diagnosis and treatment are becoming increasingly common, placing vulnerable patients at serious risk. The Guild also cautioned that the substantial progress achieved by the Lagos State Blood Transfusion Committee (LSBTC)—including investments in safe and reliable blood services—could be undermined if the strike continues without resolution. “No resident of Lagos State should suffer preventable illness or loss of life over matters that are ultimately resolvable through dialogue and negotiation,” the Guild said, urging Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to facilitate constructive engagement among all stakeholders. GMLD Lagos reaffirmed its commitment to supporting initiatives that strengthen healthcare delivery and safeguard the wellbeing of all Lagosians.

  • LUTH records high patient turnout after JOHESU strike

    Activities have started picking up at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) in Idi-Araba.

    This followed the end of the strike by the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU).

    The union embarked on an indefinite strike on April 17, and the action entered seventh week when the union ended it.

    Patients have started receiving optimal medical and surgical attentions at various outpatient clinics, accident and emergency unit, as well as the paediatric sections.

    Our reporter, who visited the hospital yesterday, discovered that all the clinics were filled with patients.

    Doctors and other categories of workers were busy attending to patients – on appointment cards, registration desk, pay points and the consulting rooms.

    The outpatient clinics our reporter visited are: Diabetics, Cardiology, Neuro-surgery, Haematology, Paediatrics Cardiology, Paediatrics Neonatology, Immunoprophylaxis, Cleft palate, Gynaecology, Ear-Nose-Throat (ENT) and Orthopaedic.

    The pharmacy, paying points as well as private and hospital’s diagnoses centres were also functional.

    Doctors were also attending to patients at the annexe of the teaching hospital at Harvey Road in Yaba, where the Dermatology unit is located.

    The Nation observed an unusual attendance at the clinics, just as the medical team attended to the patients with promptness.

    While some patients occupied the sitting furniture, others were seen leaning on the walls.

    A patient, Mrs Felicia Amoo, complained about the effects the JOHESU strike had on patients before it was called off.

    According to her, she resides in Winners Chapel area of Ota in Ogun State with her five-year-old child who is undergoing diagnoses for the cause of fast-breathing.

    She said: “We have gone to the Cardiology (unit) and the cause had not been established. So, we were sent to Neurology, where we were told that it was the day we came for the appointment that the strike started.

     

     

     

     

  • JOHESU strike: Edo doctors shun national body’s directive

    MEMBERS of the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) in the Edo State owned hospitals have shunned directives by its national body to join in a nationwide strike action. A visit to the Benin Central Hospital showed that all health workers were at their duty post.

    Patients were attended to at the accident and emergency ward while doctors and nurses were seen administering treatment to patients on admission.

    It was gathered that the state government met with the health workers and gave them reasons why they should not join the strike action.

    One of the reasons adduced by the state government, according to sources, was that there was no industrial disharmony in the state and that workers were paid salaries before the end of the month.

    When contacted for comments, State Commissioner for Health, Dr. David Osifo, said he just received notification from the state JOHESU that they would not be joining the strike action. “They are not joining. They have notified me that they are not joining the strike action,” he said.

  • Patients groan as JOHESU strike lingers

    The nation-wide indefinite strike by the members of the Joint Health Staff Union (JOHESU) members is taking its tolls on patients.

    At the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), patients were abandoned.

    Frustration was written on the faces of patients waiting for doctors to attend to them as no staff member was willing to get their files or accept payment from them at the various paying points.

    The patients appealed to the government to yield to the demands of the striking workforce, saying when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers.

    The patients told The Nation that nurses were the closest workers to them and that since the strike started,  midnight care had stopped.

    The Nation observed some family members taking care of their relation on admission.

    According to Mrs Onyechi Ilepa (not real name), her son had an accident and was being cared for by the hospital team, “but now nobody is here to continue with the treatment as health workers are on strike. When doctors come in, they move round the beds, doing nothing, and then say, ‘we are coming’ and that is the end for the day.”

    Mrs Ilepa continued: “I am in agony because my son is on admission. I had to leave my job to come and stay with him here and nurse him to the best of my motherly instinct. There is nobody at home as you can see that his sister is here with me. She runs errands for me.  I am not a professional nurse; my son needs the service of nurses. We could not even buy drugs because the pharmacy is not dispensing. To even pay is difficult because the receivers are nowhere to be found. I do not want my son to have complications like sepsis or gangrene that could worsen his condition. You can see my pack of gloves, liquid soap and steriliser. I am cleaning his wounds with mentholated spirit. This is agony. The government should yield to their demands.

    “What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. Doctors, no doubt, are the head of the medical team, but that does not mean that other professionals should not be treated rightly. The health sector is not meant for doctors only. Doctors perform surgeries, but other professionals also have roles that they play. Like nurses that continue with the care of the patients and pharmacists that dispense drugs. Is it not the nurses that will call on doctors when patients run into crises when on admission? The government should be serious in handling these demands because I remember in 1995, nothing was done. The government should have sympathy on the suffering patients. These striking workers should be considered.”

    Her son affirmed that if not for his mother, things would have gone wrong with his treatment.

    He said: “I have been on admission since Thursday, last week due to an accident and I am always in pains. I cannot move without being assisted. It is my mum’s care that is sustaining me since midnight when the strike took off. I appeal to the government to oblige the requests of JOHESU because even cleaners are relevant in a hospital setting.”

    Another patient, Mr Ajibade Taiwo  (not real name), said it was upsetting for him that the tion of CONMESS and about equality when the salary scales have been laden with full measures of injustice from inception?

     

    The best the adjustment of CONHESS scale guarantees is maintenance of parity which the 2009 memorandum of understanding with Federal Ministry of Health built into the agreement it signed with all parties.

     

    We therefore call on the Federal Government to shun the constriction of logic that the NMA excels in by giving health workers in Nigeria their legitimate dues immediately.

     

    1. Payment of Specialist Allowances to Deserving Health Professionals

     

    Pharmacists in particular have been short-changed in this regards. As far back as 1997 (21 years ago), pharmacists who trained as consultants at the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists (WAPCP) have not been recognised by the Federal Government. Only the Niger State Government has recognised this cadre in Nigeria despite the fact that the National Council on Establishment approved the consultancy cadre in 2010 for pharmacists. The Federal Ministry of Health in 2010 and 2015 endorsed this cadre for pharmacists, but strangely the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation has not issued a circular because another group of employees in the health sector is opposed to the designation of health professionals apart from doctors as consultants.

     

    A dire need to potentiate potentials compel the need to promote the tenets of good healthcare practices. Healthcare remains a global endeavour as well as practice and so we cannot have a Nigerian style of healthcare.

     

    The consultancy cadre is a global reality in all the healthcare professions notably Pharmacy, Nursing, Radiography, Physiotherapy, Medical Laboratory Science, etc.

     

    In Nigeria, the Nigerian Medical Association and its members have continued to attempt to weigh down clamours for consultancy cadre in the various health professions through a vengeance of satanic antagonism.

     

    Recently in its press statement, the Nigerian Medical Association posited “that Nigerian doctors do not need consultants in other health professions” hence such cadres should be done away with at their whims and caprices. Are the other health professional consultants employees of doctors or employees of same government that employed doctors?

     

    The above amounts to a climax of the absurd in all material particulars. The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (Lagos) appraises the patricidal arrogance of doctors who specialise in insultingly ancient tactics to impose revoltingly illogical ideals thus perennially turning our health system to a cementry of great ideas especially if it will not throw up doctors as the ONLY relevant group of health workers.

     

    Let it be said and the time is now that we must and shall resist existential adversaries to our interest and ultimately that of consumers of health.

     

    1. Payment of Arrears of the Skipping of CONHESS 10:

    In a landmark ruling, the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) conceded this privilege to health professionals including pharmacists, but eight years after, many of the managements of the Federal Health Institutions have refused to pay these arrears to our members.

     

    1. Increase of Age of Health Workers from 60 to 65 Years:

    The request is based on the expertise of health workers which is peculiar and unique at a time skills and competences continue to wane in the landscape. This protects the health system ultimately.

     

    1. Review of the Composition of the Boards of Federal Health Institutions (FHIs):

    The lopsided composition of the board of federal health institutions which is yet another creation of the military administration of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida vis decree 10 of 1985. This statute ensures that at least eight (8) out of thirteen (13) board members of Federal Health Institutions belong to only one profession. The 2017/2018 composition in fact remains an embarrassment, as no single nominee of the PSN was picked as member on any of the fifty five (55) Federal Health Institutions to represent other health professionals as provided for in law.

     

    Even the incumbent president of PSN who the Minister of Health, Prof Adewole publicly brandishes as a bridge builder because of his efforts to foster genuine team spirit in healthcare was not found worthy of appointment by the Federal Ministry of Health. No leadership of the Federal Ministry of Health has ever treated the PSN hierarchy with such ignominy extended to our leadership. In 2014, the PSN had to drag the Federal Ministry of Health and its minister to court when it refused to appoint registered pharmacists in tandem with the Teaching Hospital Act and we are contemplating a repeat of such legal interventions.

     

    After a review of the serial vitiation of its agreement with health workers, the PSN (Lagos) wishes to demand for immediate interventions along the reflected lines:

     

    1. Immediate issuance of the circular of the adjustment of CONHESS scale as was done for CONMESS by the National Salaries and Wages Commission.

     

    1. Issuance of the circular on consultancy cadre for pharmacists and other health professionals in the public service by the office of the Head of Service of the Federation in tandem with approval of the National Council on Establishment.

     

    iii.              An  immediate reshuffling of the Federal Executive Council to redress the challenges of appointing members of only one profession as Ministers in charge of Federal Ministry of Health, a situation compounded by the appointment of members of this same lineage in the Federal Ministry  of Labour and Productivity. His Excellency, President Buhari was actually warned about the implication of this unskewed nature of appointments as soon as they were done in 2015.

     

    1. An urgent demand on JOHESU/AHPA to begin to mobilise other health professionals in the private sector to consider staging symbolic shut down of their private facilities on selected days in strategic cities if after two weeks the on-going strike is unresolved in addition to the commencement of strike at State and Local Government levels by health workers.

     

     

  • NMA seeks end to JOHESU strike

    •Adedayo is new NMA president

    THE Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has appealed to the Federal Government to honour its agreements with the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) and end the ongoing strike in the health sector.

    The association made the appeal yesterday, in Abuja in a communiqué issued at the end of its 58th Annual General/Scientific and Delegates’ Conference.

    According to the communiqué read by its new President, Dr. Francis Adedayo, the association said it disparaged the strike and appealed to the Federal Government to end it soon.

    JOHESU, a union comprising all health workers in Nigeria, apart from medical doctors and dentists, began a nationwide indefinite strike on April 18.

    “We disparage the ongoing strike action by JOHESU and appeal to government to honour its agreements with all health workers.’’

    On medical tourism, the association said: “We call on the government to improve the work environment and upgrade the infrastructure to meet international standards in order to reverse medical tourism”

    However, NMA applauded the government for its efforts in rehabilitation of primary health institutions in the country.

    The association called on the government to increase budgetary allocation release for health to meet 15 per cent of the total budget, to embrace the universal health coverage for Nigerians.

    Meanwhile, the association has elected new national officers to run its affairs for the next two years.

    The following members apart from Adedayo were elected into the National Officers Committee (NOC) of the NMA.

    They are: Dr. Kenneth Tijo as first vice president; Dr. Ofem Enang – second vice president; Dr. Olumuyiwa Peter – secretary general; Dr. Benjamin Ikechukwu – deputy secretary general.

  • JOHESU strike: MDCAN warns against harassment of doctors, health workers

    The Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) has warned members of the striking Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) to desist from harassing their members, medical doctors and other health workers willing to offer services.

    This was contained in a statement made available to The Nation in Calabar, jointly signed by the National President and Secretary General of MDCAN, Prof. Ngim Ngim and Dr. Affiong Ibanga respectively of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital.

    The statement said that MDCAN would not condone any harassment from members of JOHESU against other health workers willing to offer medical services to the general public as the strike continues.

    The statement said that although MDCAN recognises the right of workers to negotiate terms of engagement with their employers, it was right to be done within the ambit of extant laws and in compliance with international best practices.

    “The striking health workers are warned to desist from harassing any member of MDCAN, medical doctors and indeed any other health worker willing to continue rendering medical services.

    “Though MDCAN does not oppose an upward review of wages of workers in the health or other sectors, it is important that the government be reminded to strictly take into account and comply with the existing relativity in wages of professional groups in the sector.

    “It is important to inform those who may not be aware that there has not been any upward review of the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure contrary to the dis-information being peddled by these striking workers to hoodwink them to gain public sympathy.

    “The adjustment of CONMESS in 2014 was a correction of an error to restore relativity when the government realised that the principle of relativity for which there is a valid and subsisting agreement with the federal government had been inadvertently breached during the negotiation process.

    “This corrected CONMESS is not an increase in salary and should not be misconstrued as such. Acceding to the current demands by JOHESU will create a fresh distortion in the relativity and certainly lead to another round of protracted crisis in the health sector,” it read.