The National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, NANNM, yesterday shut down the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, ABUTH, Shika, Zaria in Kaduna State. The nurses and midwives were protesting the refusal by the management of ABUTH to attend to issues relating to their welfare.

Declaring the indefinite strike at ABUTH, the Chairperson of NANNM, Kaduna State chapter, Comrade Cecilia Musa, said the hospital management failed to respond to their grievances despite a seven-day ultimatum issued by the union.

Musa explained that nurses were finding it difficult to discharge their duties owing to acute shortage of consumables, alleging that they used their meagre earnings to acquire some working materials to keep the hospital services on.

The chairperson said 28 days’ allowances and other allowances must first be paid to newly employed nurses since 2009. She said: “Our negotiation meeting with ABUTH authorities turned to a physical combat between the management and the health workers’ union leaders. “The ABUTH director of administration stood up to slap our union secretary and that was how the physical combat started.

The director went ahead to call security agents to come and forcefully send us out of the teaching hospital. “We gave ABUTH management seven days’ ultimatum to resolve all issues relating to the welfare of our members here in ABUTH but they failed.

“We can’t sleep until our members get what rightly belongs to them. Anybody who wants to boycott the strike will face sanctions. Our council will not renew that person’s practicing licence.