Posted on: Tue 20-06-2023

The Joint Health Sector Union, JOHESU, and Association of Health Healthcare Professionals, AHPA, have called on President Bola Tinubu to allow the reforms shaping Nigeria in the last few days catch up with the Health Sector.

The health workers also  alleged that Tinubu’s predecessors have allowed Physicians to enjoy an unfortunate usurpation of the authoritative exclusivity of non-Physician health workers in Nigeria.

In a press statement tagged: “Re: Health Workers Demand Equal Pay with Doctors and Opposes CONHESS Adjustment for JOHESU”, they called on the President to appoint seasoned Administrators outside the NMA portfolio to enable them have a fair chance of repositioning the failed health system rated 187th out of 191 health systems.

The statement signed by the Ag. National Secretary, Comrade Matthew Ajurotu, further said the Unions are looking forward to gorgeous pomp and pageantry in the health sector through equity in spread of benefit package and privileges in addition to good quality appointments in the various MDAs in the days ahead.

The statement which was in reaction to a recent publication by the NMA and the Nigerian Association of Medical & Dental Academics, NAMDA, notes that both medical groups are unanimous in taking a position that an adjustment in CONHESS will amount to a distortion in the relativity of existing CONHESS and CONMESS.

The statement reads: “The CONHESS and CONMESS became salary scales for Non-Physician and Physician cadres in 2009.

Prior to the introduction of discriminatory salary scales in Nigeria especially the era pre-1991 when late Olikoye Ransome-Kuti under the military regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida imposed the Medical Salary Scale (MSS), the norm was that Pharmacists and Physicians entered the Civil Service on the equivalent of GL 08 for Internship and Houseman-ship respectively and move to GL 09 after Youth Service. “Other Health professionals who are graduates started on GL 08 after Youth Service, while Registered Nurses and Midwives started on GL 07.

“At both the Federal and State Civil Service, Pharmacists and Physicians were on the same Grade Level and enjoyed only a marginal one Grade Level difference over other health professionals because of the difference in years of training.

“Without any fundamental shift in the duration of training or course content, Physicians under the aegis of the NMA took maximal advantage of their dominance of the leadership bracket of the FMOH to alter the Augean stable with a discriminatory salary scale styled MSS while non-Physicians including health professionals were placed on the Health Salary Scale (HSS).

“This status quo was further altered to give more advantage by another Physician-Health Minister, Late Prof. Oshotimehim who again came up with an equally oppressive CONHESS and CONMESS Scale for Non-Physicians and Physicians personnel in 2009.

Without a recourse to bar-charts, graphs and other arithmetical indices for simplicity, the status quo today is that Physicians now enter the Civil Service for Houseman-ship on the equivalent of GL 10 and proceed to GL 13 after Youth Service.

Pharmacists who hitherto were on the same Grade Level as Physicians and other health professionals now start Internship on the equivalent of GL 09 and proceed to GL 10 after Youth Service.

“In real terms, salary experts will confirm that true relativity is permanently entrenched at the entry point in the Civil Service.

Presently as it stands after Youth Service, a Physician who starts at GL 13 will have his contemporary health professional who takes off at GL 10 as benchmark in this discourse. By existing Civil Service protocol, it will take a minimum of 10 years for any health professional who starts on GL 10 to attain GL 13 where the Physician kick-starts his career.

“To further fast-track the career of the Physician, if he passes the requisite Fellowship programme of a Medical Post-Graduate College, he moves automatically to GL 15 and all things being equal will be at the peak of GL 17 between 10 and 12 years.

“This is a career path that will take any average health professional a minimum of 25 years. The honest question therefore is how does equality pay arise when the Physician infested FMOH and other strategic quarters in the Civil Service have continued to impose a power play that confirms that “there is no equality in the world of power, the strong do what they like and the weak suffer what they must.”

Continuing, they alleged that a concatenation of events in the health sector in the last 12 years of extreme Physician domination has bred fascism in the Nigerian Health system.

They claimed that all avenues to redress the injustice of discriminatory salary wages to non-Physician health workers was destroyed by the infamous trio of Prof. Christian Chukwu 2011-2015, Prof. Isaac Adewole 2015-2019 and Dr. Osagie Ehanire 2019-2023 when they led the FMoH.

They said the issues of relativity between CONHESS and CONMESS will shock observers of the sector despite the wailing propensities of NMA and NAMDA.

They insisted that CONMESS has been selectively reviewed three times in 2014, 2017 and 2018 while the fourth round of increase was proposed by the duo of Ehanire and newly appointed Special Adviser on Health to President Tinubu, Dr. Salma Anas who is the immediate past Director of Hospital Services Department of the FMOH in May, 2023.

“In 2018, consolidated salary scales were not entitled to consequential adjustment championed by Organized Labour, but the trio of Physician-Health Minister Dr. Ehanire, Physician-Labour Minister Dr. Ngige and the Physician-HOSOF Dr. Shade Yemi-Esan smuggled CONMESS into the salary scales to benefit their Physician colleagues.”

“The Technical Committee of experts which confirmed that CONMESS has been adjusted to the disadvantage of CONHESS were drawn from Government and include representatives from salaries, Income and Wages Commission, Budget Office, IPPIS, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Office of the Head of Service of the Federation and FMOH. It was only the Physicians from the Hospital Services Dept who represented the FMoH who sang songs of distortion on relativity as orchestrated by NMA that opposed the adjustment of CONHESS at Committee level.

“This is why moving forward JOHESU/AHPA has now made it clear to the FG that it will no longer seat in negotiation with staff of the Physician based Hospital Services Dept of the FMoH. JOHESU will henceforth entertain parlays with the personnel of Human Resources FMoH.

“The Committee met for months in 2021 after a previous recommendation on adjustment of CONHESS put at N22.6Billion at that time was craftily sabotaged by the duo of Dr. Chris Ngige and Prof. Isaac Adewole in 2018.”

They said: “We respectfully draw the attention of President Tinubu to the highlights of a recent engagement with JOHESU/AHPA when His Excellency was inundated with facts which led to generation and escalation of entropy in the Health sector.

“President Tinubu goes into the history book as the first Head of Government in this democratic dispensation (1999-2023) to appoint a Special Adviser (Health) in the person of Salma Anas a Physician. The Special Adviser (Health) was Director of Hospital Service Department of the FMOH up to a few days ago.”

They stated that the Special Adviser on Health has commenced the instigation of crisis in the sector by using her erstwhile influential position in the FMOH to leak development and content of memos related to JOHESU/FG talks to the NMA.

The ease with which NMA quoted figures and agreements with JOHESU to sensitive Government quarters must be probed to establish whether Salma Anas is a fit and proper public officer.

The NMA propaganda and blackmail is obviously tainted with the input of Salma Anas and the Presidency must put an end to this type of shameful conduct.”

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