Posted on: Mon 17-08-2020

COMMUNIQUE OF THE 2-DAY MEETING OF THE JOINT HEALTH SECTOR UNIONS (JOHESU) HELD AT THE AYUBA WABBA HOUSE, MHWUN HQS, DURUMI DISTRICT, CADASTRAL ZONE B02, AREA 1, ABUJA ON 10TH AND 11TH AUGUST, 2020

Preamble

The two day meeting featured representatives of affiliate Unions which make up JOHESU and the Assembly of Healthcare Professional Associations (AHPA). The meeting reviewed contemporary and outstanding welfare packages, the implementation mode of COVID-19 Special Inducement and Hazard Allowances, invitation for an investigative hearing by the House Committee on Insurance and Actuarial matters, appraisal of the sensitization tours of the FHIs, evaluation of the State of the nation and other pending issues. 

After a thorough deliberation and critical assessment of all matters at meeting, the JOHESU observed and resolved as follows: 

State of the Nation

1. JOHESU called for an adequate and timely redress of the growing insecurity of lives and properties in the country. JOHESU attributed this development in part to the poor budgets in relative terms that has been dedicated to fighting insurgency at this critical juncture in our nationhood. 
2. Anti-corruption war should be taken more seriously by the Federal Government and all corruption related investigation and litigation be accelerated and completed. 
3. JOHESU took cognizance of the current deregulation of fuel prices by the PPRA as well as introduction of stamp duties to be paid by tenants in properties to the Federal Inland revenue services and yet another looming hike in prices if energy tariff by DISCOS in the current COVID-19 season.
4. JOHESU posited that while other countries were offering palliatives as well as reducing the inclination towards social dysfunctions, our nation appears to be sowing the seeds of hardship and other bitter bills to bring depression to the doorstep of citizens. 
5. JOHESU therefore called on the Presidency to bring remedial measures which will ameliorate the pains of the citizenry while also restoring hope for a better tomorrow in a great country
6. JOHESU applauded the efforts of the House Committee on Insurance and Actuarial Matters which is trying to ascertain as well as institute a culture of group health insurance for health workers in Nigeria.
7. JOHESU committed itself to working maximally to align with the good intensions of the House Committee particularly because this will incentivize all health workers to put their best in an improving environment. 
8. JOHESU analyzed the comments of the Minister of Health Dr. Osagie Enahire at a recent collaborative meeting with the NMA on the management of emergency and ambulance services where Dr. Enahire declared that the collaboration to the NMA with the FMoH as good and compelling because “all of them at the FMoH” are medical doctors as a continuation of the vicious cycle of fruitlessness by Medical Doctor-Health Ministers in Nigeria who continue to wrongly presume that the Federal Ministry of Health is the equivalent of a Federal Ministry of Medical Practitioners. 
9. JOHESU reasoned that this is a major reason why chieftains of the FMoH continue to subvert the interest of other stakeholders in health sector through unlawful, wrongful appointment in boards, agencies and parastatals in FMoH, while preserving all privileges and benefit packages exclusively for Medical Doctors at the detriment of other health professionals and workers, an act that continues to seriously jeopardise the Health system which continues to languish amongst the worst 10 in global rankings since 1991
10. JOHESU resolved to insist on the immediate payment of all withheld salaries of its members in JUTH, FMC Owerri, LUTH and the April and May salaries of all JOHESU members which was made possible by the wicked machinations of the immediate past Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole who anchored a selective and discriminatory “NO WORK NO PAY” policy that has been applied exclusively against only JOHESU members since the democratic dispensation that commenced 21 years ago. 
11. JOHESU puts on record that Medical Practitioners who went on strike in JUTH and LUTH in same 2018 in the same health sector were never sanctioned, while ASUU members who went on strike in 2017 were spared the ignominy of “NO WORK NO PAY” by the Federal Ministry of Education. 
12. JOHESU recalled with great interest that in the spirit of the distress associated with COVID-19 that president Buhari waived the obnoxious “NO WORK NO PAY” regime for striking ASUU members in April 2020, while the sacred cows in the Health Sector got away with sanctions during the July 2020 Strike action of Resident Doctors. 
13. Moving forward, JOHESU for the umpteenth time strongly urge the Federal Government to pay its members all salaries to prevent an intractable labour crisis from its overburdened members.
14. JOHESU critically appraised the response time of the federal government to the timelines set in the consent judgment of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria which mediated the high wire.
15. JOHESU mandated leadership to immediately draw the attention of the Hon. Minister of Labour and Employment as well as the FMoH to their deliberate inaction to energies the requisite processes contemplated in the Court judgment of the NICN.
16. JOHESU declared its readiness to seek an order of mandamus and pursue other judicial actions to enforce the implementation of the various court judgments already granted by the NICN.
17. JOHESU laments the obvious attempt to sabotage the actualization of the adjustment of CONHESS scale as was done for CONMESS since 2014 by the manipulative output of successive leadership at the FMoH, FML&E, Budget Office, Federal Ministry of Finance and other MDAs. JOHESU draws attention to revelations which emerged during a recent courtesy call in March, 2020 to the President Buhari where it was discovered that the FMoH never presented the estimates worked out in 2018 by the NISWC to cater for the Adjustment of the CONHESS to the President for approval, while it perennially gave information that it was the president that refused to approve on grounds of paucity of JOHESU mandated it leadership to immediately draw the attention of the Hon. Minister of Labour and employment as well as the FMoH to their deliberate inaction to energise the requisite processes contemplated in the Court judgment of the NICN. 
18. JOHESU declared its readiness to seek an order to mandamus and pursue other judicial actions to enforce the implementation of the various court judgments already granted by the NICN. 
19. JOHESU laments the obvious attempt to sabotage the actualization of the adjustment of CONHESS scale as was done for CONMESS since 2014 by the manipulative output of successive leadership at the FMoH, FML&E, Budget Office, Federal Ministry of Finance and other MDAs.
20. JOHESU draws attention to revelations which emerged during a recent courtesy call in March, 2020 to the President Buhari where it was discovered that the FMoH never presented the estimates worked out in 2018 by the NISWC to cater for the Adjustment of the CONHES5 to the President for approval, while it perennially gave information that it was the President that refused to approve on grounds of paucity of funds. 
21. JOHESU noted with serious concerns the mind games being played with its representatives by the Federal Government in over 6u2 years since the era of former President Goodluck Jonathan GCFR. 
22. Health workers under the aegis of JOHESU after a review of the sequence of events that have stalled progress of activating adjustment of CONHESS scale now insist on immediate commencement of fresh negotiations of an acceptable Adjustment of the CONHESS Salary Structure as was for CONMESS.
23. JOHESU evaluated the slow pace of correcting the errors associated with the review of the implementation of COVID-19 special inducement and Hazard Allowance where non-clinical staff have been paid 10%.
24. JOHESU pointed out that risk factors of contracting the coronavirus for clinical and non-clinical staff who work in isolation centres or health facilities were same as exposure was at same level along the value chain. JOHESU admonished the FMoH to ensure that the 3rd batch of payments for June must redress previous errors, otherwise, the FMoH leaves us with no other choice than to infer that previous errors were a deliberate vitiation of the agreements on COVID-19 inducement allowance. 
25. JOHESU resolved not to stop aggrieved members who have been spoiling to protest the unpatriotic acts against them after rising their lives for motherland through withdrawal of their services if government rescinds the agreements to pay them their dues. 
26. The national leadership after a thorough appraisal of the nationwide sensitization/mobilization tour, appreciate the commitment and the willingness of our teeming members to respond appropriately to directives from the leadership to curb all forms of injustice and unfairness being matted out to JOHESU members. 
27. Finally, JOHESU enjoins its teeming membership to maintain the peace as it awaits further directives from the National Secretariat in our realistic bid to claim our stake as worthy compatriots and citizens of the country who cannot be short changed or discriminated against by government. 

Thank you.

Signed:

Com. (Chief) M.O. Ajorutu

Ag. National Secretary

For: National Chairman, (JOHESU)

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