Posted on: Sat 03-07-2021

JOHESU is a large body made up of professionals and non-professionals. There is definitely a wide gap in education and exposure amongst members. The large number could have been more beneficial for us, but due to the heterogeneous nature of the group, you find out that more often than not, industrial actions are not really effective. You don't expect the resilience and focus of a non-professional to match that of a professional, in most cases. In the event of a "no work no pay", you don't expect a porter or a driver or even an admin staff to endure for long. You need to read some of their comments on Facebook to realize that these people don't value themselves and are ready to receive crumbs from the negotiation table of NARD and FG. You might say that there are core health professionals that have an inferiority complex as well. But the truth is that they don't form the majority, and they can be taken care of easily. On the other hand, you can't effectively manage the crowd in JOHESU.

Sir, don't you think it's high time the core health professionals under the National Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP) and National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) regrouped and re-strategized? 

Let me use a scenario to describe one of the benefits of regrouping. Way back in 2018, the FG agreed to adjust CONHESS, I think from 9 or 10. That would have benefited the core health professionals only. JOHESU leadership rejected the offer. Of course, it was the right thing to do, considering that the officials were representing everybody in the fold. It would have been a victory for us if FG was negotiating with a group of core health professionals only. We rejected the offer, and to date, nothing has come out of it and the offer is no longer on the table. 

Demands like consultancy status, the appointment of CMDs, headship of departments are peculiar to the core health professionals only. You don't expect the others to be serious about it, especially when they form the majority of the officials of JOHESU at the national level.

JOHESU has been helpful in some respects but certainly, there are many unresolved issues that can't be achieved with the current setup. As a matter of fact, JOHESU has become something else of late, which is not unrelated to the category of composite groups in it. After the warning strike of last year, what progress has been made? Sensitizations and meetings with nothing concrete. 

NARD is on strike, and one of their demands is a review of the hazard allowances for health workers based on basic salary. If they are successful, the implication is an astronomical increase in the already widened salary difference between members of NMA and other health workers. And as usual, JOHESU would only bark. And it would form and add to their backlog of demands that will linger for many years without approval. Some people might say that it's not possible, government must review the hazard allowances based on a flat rate for everyone. But let's not deceive ourselves, nothing will happen! CONHESS adjustment struggle which started since 2014 is a clear case and is now but a mirage!

On the issue of hazard allowances, we can't even rule out the possibility of NARD acting the script written by their parent body with approval from the FMoH and FMoL&P. Forget the rants and deception being played by Ngige.

The truth is that there are some demands that are practically impossible for the government to uniformly accede to with some category of people in the group called JOHESU. These are people that render the same services in other government establishments. You don't expect the government to approve a blanket pay for everyone, including those whose colleagues render the same services elsewhere.

JOHESU should still subsist but a new union made up of core health professionals that will cater for our peculiar issues and call for industrial actions when necessary is very much needed.

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