Health workers begin nationwide strike Today

 














Health workers across the country will today begin an indefinite strike over alleged government’s refusal to accede to their demands.
The aggrieved workers ousted their grievances to include intractable leadership crisis in the health sector; non-commencement of residency training programme for health professionals, non-implementation of new call duty allowance and non-payment of arrears of CONHESS 10 skipping, among others.
National President of Nigeria Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP), an umbrella body of group of professionals like physiotherapists, medical laboratory scientists, pharmacists, occupational therapists, optometrists, dietitians, medical social workers, clinical psychologists and dental therapists, Comrade Felix Faniran,  at a news conference in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital said the strike would be total and indefinite.
Faniran, who accused  the Presidency as well as the Minister for Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu and the leaders of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) as  allegedly fueling and sustaining the crisis in the sector traced the origin of the present crisis to how NMA allegedly frustrated the bid to appoint the late Professor Dora Akunyili as Health Minister some years ago.
“When it became apparent that the late President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua was unable to continue to discharge his duties as president of the nation due to ill health, his vice, Dr. Ebele Jonathan was sworn in as Acting President after the Senate had proclaimed ‘Doctrine of Necessity’. Mr. President dissolved the erstwhile cabinet and proposed a new one. The name, Professor Dora Akunyili, now of blessed memory and a prominent and vocal member of the previous administration made the new list.
“Most public commentators expected her to be named Minister for Health. Sensing this, the Nigeria Medical Association engaged in media blackmail against the appointment of Dora or any other person than a medical practitioner of NMA membership. This was the origin of the present crisis in the health sector, though, there has been other issues at stake whose roots were found in the administration of Gen. Babangida’s military regime, when Professor Olikoye Ransome Kuti, a medical practitioner, was made minister of health from 1985-1993. Three major challenges were noticed in the Ransome Kuti’s era which affected our people.”