AS the 15 days fresh ultimatum given to the Federal Government to address complaints peculiar to health workers in tertiary health institutions expired yesterday, health professionals under the aegis of the Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP) may begin indefinite strike today. 

 

According to NUAHP President, Mr. Felix Faniran, the strike will only affect health services in both federal and state owned tertiary health institutions across the federation. 

 

The union is made up of pharmacists, physiotherapists, medical laboratory scientists, radiographers, dental technologists, occupational therapists, health information managers, dieticians and other related health professionals in teaching hospitals. 

 

In a statement signed and made available to The Guardian in Lagos yesterday by Faniran and other executive members of the union, the health professionals directed its members across the federation to form strike monitoring committee and picket affected hospitals.   

 

According to the statement, some of the demands of the health workers include that the appointment of chief medical directors should include health care professionals who are full time staff of teaching hospitals as against the current practice of appointment of only medical doctors who double as lecturers in universities; the immediate abolition of the office of deputy chairman, medical advisory committee (CMAC) and deputy head of clinical services in tertiary hospitals, and promotion of health professionals from deputy directors to directors.

 

Other demands include immediate stoppage of the current practice of appointing university lecturers as CMAC and head of clinical departments in hospitals; removal of Minister of Health, Prof. Chukwu Onyebuchi; immediate release of interview results conducted for three health professionals in University Teaching Hospital (UCH) for the position of directors and enhancement of entry point for medical laboratory science interns from Consolidated Health Salary Scale 07 (CONHESS07) to CONHESS08.  

 

Meanwhile, Health Reform Foundation of Nigeria (HERFON) said yesterday that the Midwives Service Scheme (MSS) has suffered a setback in the Southeast following the non-remittance of the counterpart funding by various state governments in the zone.

 

HERFON’s Zonal Programme Officer, Mr. Chris Amalu, who disclosed this in Enugu, said the non-remittance of their part of the counterpart funding by the state governments had resulted to the non-payment of allowances due to the midwives engaged under the scheme.

 

Explaining that the development had led to poor retention and attrition of the trained human resources for health, he added that the midwives lacked decent accommodation in the communities where they reside.

 

He said, “HERFON is advocating that the Governors of the South-East states should emulate their counterparts in the North and show full commitment and political will to the Memorandum of Understand they all signed under the scheme.  The SURE-P Maternal and Child Health (MCH) fund is to add onto the achievements of the MSS. Thus, apart from the MSS counterpart fund, the state governments should be further interrogated on their utilization of the 45 per cent share of the SURE-P fund that is directly remitted to states from Federal to ensure probity and accountability”.

 

Amalu said that the deplorable health status of the country’s health system led the Federal Government in 2009 to introduce the MSS through the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) arguing, however, that poor maternal and child health indices has continued as the most serious development challenges facing the country.

 

The MSS which has an MoU signed by the three tiers of government in the country aims to facilitate an increase in the coverage of Skilled Birth Attendance (SBA) to reduce maternal, newborn and child mortality.

 

It is designed to mobilise midwives, including newly qualified, unemployed and retired midwives, for deployment to selected primary health care facilities in rural communities.

 

FROM LAWRENCE NJOKU (ENUGU) AND JOSEPH OKOGHENUN

Guardian