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By Dili San Jules
Three-month old strike by health workers across hospitals is set to continue well into 2015, after a meeting between the workers unions and government failed to produce a resolution. The Joint Health Sector Unions, and its sister Assembly of Health Care Professionals, said its latest meeting on December 22 with federal government side convened at the instance of the labour and productivity supervising minister Kabiru Turaki did not meet its expectation and could not warrant it to suspend the strike.
“The responses of the federal government could not meet the expectation of JOHESU,” said the union in a statement.
It claimed government “has not been able to implement any of the judgement of the National Industrial Court delivered in its favour last year.
“This unseriousness on the part of federal government cannot give us the courage to convince our members to suspend the current industrial action,” JOHESU said in a statement signed by its six constituent unions.
They include Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), Assembly of Health Care Professionals (AHCP), Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP), National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) and Senior Staff Association of Universities, Teaching Hospitals, Research Institutions and Associated Institutions (SSAUTHRIAI).
The strike has left entire hospitals to doctors alone and senior management officials since November, and JOHESU said federal government should be held responsible for the “non resolution of this conflict, since they have chosen to continually discriminate, marginalize and victimize members of JOHESU nationwide.” The union claimed federal government stopped salaries of its members, “which was not done to members of NMA and MDCAN that embarked on illegal strike even at the peak of Ebola Virus Disease outbreak.
The December 22 was to see how far federal government had moved in implementing agreements and court rulings, including to promote JOHESU members as directors after they have stayed four to five years on the same salary level without promotion in federal hospitals.
The union also wants government circulars backing adjustment of salaries since January last and immediate payment of at least two months arrears while the balance is figured into the 2015 budget.
Another circular is to back extension of retirement age and backdated to February 2014, when the issue came before the National Council on Establishments.
Immediate and full payments of salary arrears going back to 2010 and accruing from allowing workers to skip CONHESS 10 is also on the table.
Arrears of allowances to specialists based in hospitals with effect from January 2010 is also wanted, in line with the NIC ruling, along with release of harmonized scheme of service for nurses and midwives.
The unions also want government to address skewed membership of boards of management in tertiary hospitals, and have called on government to define the functions and power of honorary consultants in teaching hospitals as well as appoint more hospital-based consultants instead of honorary ones from universities.
