The Nation Newspaper

Tag: JOHESU

  • Govt, JOHESU to meet on health workers’ strike

    Govt, JOHESU to meet on health workers’ strike

    The Federal Government and the striking health workers are expected to meet this week to resolve the lingering issues in the Health sector.

    Both parties were scheduled to meet last Wednesday but the meeting could not hold because the Ministry of Labour and Productivity was preparing the list of circulars generated by the health workers’ union.

    Health workers embarked on an indefinite strike on October 16 to press home their demands, including the appointment of Chief Medical Directors (CMD) and wrong advertorials on the posts; the need to abolish the post of Deputy Chairman Advisory Committee, being illegally created, among others.

    The Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) National General Secretary Obinna Ogbonna said the strike would continue as the union awaited the outcome of that meeting.

    He said: “The strike still continues. Therefore, you should disregard any letter of threat or intimidation from your various management. The union had replied to the letter from the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity and we have been invited to a meeting with the Federal Government next week.”

    Ogbonna also said the strike had been successful across the country.

    Federal Government’s last minute effort to stop the health workers from going on strike had failed.

  • NMA gets support to begin strike

    NMA gets support to begin strike

    •Union to withdraw services July 1

    The Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) has threatened to withdraw its services, in compliance with the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) directive.

    The NMA had directed that should the Federal Government fail to stay action on the concessions granted to Joint Health Sectors Union (JOHESU), its members would go on strike.

    In a statement yesterday in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, by its National President, Dr Olusegun Ayodeji Oluwole, MDCAN warned the government to stop playing politics with professional health matters and withhold the circulars it issued in favour of the JOHESU.

    The NMA had threatened to go on an indefinite strike on July 1 should the government fail to meet its demands.

    The government reportedly granted concessions to JOHESU and the Assembly of Healthcare Professional Association, including the approval of consultancy positions for support workers, abolition of Deputy Chairman Medical Advisory Committee position and the appointment of support workers as directors.

    MDCAN said JOHESU should be prevented from inventing a Nigerian system of medical services that would expose the nation to global ridicule.

    Oluwole noted that though it is the policy of the association to ensure uninterrupted health services, it would still provide moral and logistics support for the NMA to ensure sanity in the Health sector.

    The union leader said politics should not be allowed to further destroy the Health sector.

    He accused JOHESU of pursuing monetary rewards for its members, their appointment as directors and consultants and creation of autonomous departments for them, among others, instead of ensuring the real practice of medicine.

    Oluwole said: “…The ultimatum of the NMA to government on JOHESU matters is noted. While MDCAN remains committed to its policy of ensuring uninterrupted health services, it will comply with directives to withdraw services, should the government allow the situation to deteriorate to the extent that NMA will have no credible alternatives. MDCAN will provide all moral and logistics support for the NMA to ensure the success of any action it deems fit to restore sanity to the Health sector…”

     

    “MDCAN again appeals to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) to take critical look at the needless anarchy in the Health sector and the attendant consequences on health care delivery and training of medical students.”

    The union leader noted that such concession, particularly on consultancy appointment for support workers, is in the National Industrial Court (NIC).

    He wondered why the Federal Government granted a concession on such a highly professional issue.

    According to him, JOHESU’s request that medical teachers, who traditionally are workers of universities be eliminated from the leadership of teaching hospitals, is absurd.

    Oluwole said teaching hospitals serve universities, adding that this was how they derive their names.

    He said the union leadership should not be political but professional.

  • OOUTH health workers begin indefinite strike

    OOUTH health workers begin indefinite strike

    •Demand payment of N1.3b salary arrears, others

    The indefinite strike by the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH) in Sagamu, Ogun State, paralysed activities at the institution yesterday.

    JOHESU said the strike became necessary to compel the authorities to do the needful.

    The unions – the Senior Staff Association, National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives, Non-Academic Staff Union and the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, are protesting “unwholesome working conditions”.

    They are demanding payment of alleged 30 months salary increase arrears and pension counterpart fund by the state government.

    JOHESU Chairperson Mrs. Kikelomo Enaholo said until members are paid N1.3 billion salary arrears, they would not return to work.

    Speaking with reporters at OOUTH, Mrs. Enaholo said they were also demanding payment of March, 2011, salary and “accelerated promotion”.

    She said: “We have exhausted all options to resolve our grievances with the government. We are not politicians. We have been pushed to the wall. We will like to meet with the governor to discuss our grievances. We are ready to negotiate with him the condition for payment.”

    Mrs. Enaholo said the hospital lacked basic amenities, such as water and electricity, and was not functioning effectively, adding: “And this is because the government is insisting that we must be self sustained through our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).”

    Commissioner for Health Olaokun Soyinka said: “The government is trying to do everything to improve the situation at the hospital and that strike does not help the matter.”

     

  • Doctors to FG: Don’t tamper with teaching hospital act

    Medical doctors have warned the federal government not to tamper with the University Teaching Hospitals Act.

    They argued that amendment to the act will further degrade the training of medical students and medical research.

    Briefing reporters in Abuja yesterday, President of the Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), Dr Steven Oluwole, said the attempt to amend the act is targeted at throwing the headship of hospitals open to any hospital staff.

    For those agitating to throw the headship of teaching hospitals to every health professional aside from medical doctors, Oluwole said it is a dangerous trend, which will end up destroying the sector.

    He explained the position is not against the efforts of Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) but an effort to ensure quality training of medical research and development of medicine.

    He stressed that the operation of teaching hospitals is more technical and should not be politicised.

    The MDCAN president said: “The call to repeat or amend this act has the sole objective to throw open the headship of hospitals to any member of hospital staff.

    “While we recognise that there are hospitals outside of Nigeria that are headed by non-doctors, we contend that wholesale application of that to all hospitals is faulty.

    “Teaching hospitals, which the Act specifically addresses, are usually headed by academic doctors. This is only appropriate since these hospitals were established to serve the universities that they are named after.

    “They are primarily training institutions expected to research and develop as well as provide quality services. They are not for-profit-hospitals that are run by managers, who have primary financial interests.”

    He warned that should government repeal the act, the health sector will experience paralysis.

    Oluwole, who also spoke on JOHESU demands on career progression for support staff, said his group is not opposed to it but hinted “no staff of tertiary hospital should hold nominal or titular office that will hinder functions of other staff.”

    He further added that appointment of multiple directors in tertiary hospitals will induce chaos in a system that requires well defined chain of command.

    On salary of honorary consultants, Oluwole said the allegation of double salary is disingenuous.

     

  • Hospital sues striking workers

    The management of the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Asaba, Delta State, has sued its striking workers at the National Industrial Court, Akure, Ondo State.

    The workers, under the aegis of Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU), had on March 18 gone on strike to protest alleged shortfall in their February salaries and allowances.

    The union’s spokesman, Davidson Akinlaya, said the workers were not happy with the management. He said they would not resume, until their salaries are paid in full.

    Akinlaya alleged that the management had refused to comply with the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), which should have forestall shortfall in salaries.

  • Health professionals to withdraw services

    The coalition of professionals in the health sector, besides medics, under the aegis of the Assembly of Healthcare Professionals (AHPA) and Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU), has vowed to ask its members to withdraw their services, should the meeting with the Secretary to the Government fail to produce the desired result.

    The coalition wants the government to redress its grievances, ranging from the proposed change of service of healthcare workers in Nigeria to a review of CONHESS negotiation with the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH); amendment of Section 1 (1) of the National Health Bill and privatisation of public health facilities.

    The Chairman, Assembly of Healthcare Associations and President, Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN), Dr. Godswill Okpara, said at a news briefing in Lagos that members rejected the scheme of service proposed unilaterally by the Health Minister, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, during the meeting of the council last month.

    He said: “In pursuit of the Health Minister’s agenda, the ministry led by the minister did not consult any of the health professional associations or professional councils in line with due process, in a bid to impose a new scheme of service on health professionals, besides his professional constituency of medicine.

    “One of the absurdities in the proposed scheme is the desire of the Health Minister to change the nomenclature of the apex cadre from director associated with other graduate ranks to chief, which is unacceptable. We also observe that even Prof. Chukwu’s FMOH has issued a circular on skipping of CONHESS 10. It is not accommodated in the proposed scheme of service by the FMOH.”

     

    Okpara said after a painstaking review of events of the last few weeks on the platform of the joint bargaining committee to review the salaries and emoluments of healthcare professionals, “we note with concern that the process continues to be embellished with delay tactics and other avoidable bottlenecks.

     

  • Health workers begin warning strike Jan 15

    Health workers begin warning strike Jan 15

    •Oppose appointment of surgeon-general

    The Assembly of Health Care Professionals (AHCP) and the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) have directed their members in primary health care centres (PHCs), general/specialists and teaching hospitals to begin a five-day warning strike from January 15 till January 21.

    The assembly said the action followed the request by the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) that a surgeon-general for the federation be appointed.

    The position exists only in the United States, occupied by a care provider with military background on special assignments, often likened to the peace corps.

    The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health, to which the surgeon-general reports in the U.S., is junior to that of the minister of state for Health in Nigeria.

    The surgeon-general in the U.S. works with commissioned corps officers, who include over 6,700 uniformed health officers from various professions and serve around the world.

    The health care providers in JOHESU and the Assembly of Health Care Professionals, represented by their presidents, addressed reporters yesterday in Lagos.

    They said the appointment of a surgeon-general was unconstitutional and unlawful.

    President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) Mr Olumide Akintayo, the spokesman of the bodies, said: “The government is advised to remember the consequences of the unlawful Medical Salary Scale (MSS) of the 1990s, which was the precursor to the industrial disharmony in the public service where different cadres of workers agitated for discriminatory and exclusive wages.

    “The move to appoint a surgeon-general will lead to demands for such by all cadres of workers and, therefore, makes the government vulnerable to strikes and shut-downs.

    “The warning strike is to enable the Federal Government, led by President Goodluck Jonathan, to redress the prayers and grievances as reflected in this position paper which shall be made available to the government.

    “In the event that the government does not enter into dialogue within two weeks of this notice, we shall begin a nationwide strike.”

    The spokesman said: “We also desire the circulation of the approval of consultancy status for some cadres of health workers and the payment of arrears to honorary consultants appointed by the boards of management of hospitals, which were arbitrarily stopped on the directive of the Minister of Health, since December 15, 2010.

    “Our demand is in line with due process, as dictated by the pronouncement of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) in July 2013 and the agreement between the representatives of JOHESU and representatives of government in August.

    “We demand the release of official circulars to enforce the decision of the National Industrial Court that some cadres of health workers be allowed to skip CONHESS 10. The Federal Government/Presidency must direct the boards of management of hospitals to enforce this directive.

    “There must be a presidential directive compelling the Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission to approve reasonable and respectable allowances, as well as emoluments for health workers, as indicated in the agreement with the government since December 2009.”

    The spokesman listed some alleged cases of injustice in the Health sector which must be addressed, including “an amendment of the extremely obnoxious Act 10 of 1985, which laid the foundation for oppression in the sector through appointments unduly skewed in favour of doctors.

    “Redressing the wretched output of the National Health Insurance Scheme, which has provided cover for less than three of the citizenry in 15 years under the poor management of doctors who have been appointed executive secretaries in the last eight years…”

    Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP) has also threatened to begin a strike, if the Federal Government appoints a surgeon-general.

    In a statement by its President Felix Faniran and Secretary Obinna Ogbonna, NUAHP said the nation should prepare for an industrial unrest from other health care workers, should the government create the post.

    It said appointing a surgeon-general was a bad idea because “it would lead to agitation by other health care professionals.”

    Leaders of various unions in Health urged influential Nigerians to prevail on the government to redress the impending crises in the sector.

    They included the Chairman, Joint Health Sector, Comrade Wabba Ayuba; President, National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives, Abdulrafiu Adeniji; President, Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria/Chairman, Assembly of Health Care Professional Associations, Dr Godswill C. Okara; President, Nigeria Society of Physiotherapy, Taiwo Oyewunmi; President, Association of Radiographers of Nigeria, Dr Mark Okeji and President, Health Information Managers Association of Nigeria, Wole Ajayi.