Activities at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) were paralyzed yesterday as health workers in the hospital commenced a 3 day warning strike. An annonymous source at the hospital who sent in this information to medicalworld Nigeria confirmed that the strike begun yesterday the 11th and would run through to 13th January 2016. According to him JOHESU had been informed that Monies meant for staff call and shift allowances had been used to pay relativity allowances to medical doctors of the institution.

 

As at the time of sending in the report, our source attested that the whole hospital had been grounded by this industrial action with an an enforcement JOHESU team making sure that all members complied.

 

The chairman, Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP), Nafi’u Muhammad Ahmad, said all members of NUAHP, Medical and Health Workers Union and Nigerian Association of Nurses and Midwifery (NANM) were on strike.

 

Ahmad explained that the strike became necessary because the management of the hospital failed to address their problems. He said: “We are faced with problems of inadequate facilities,under staffing and indiscriminate deductions of our salaries; some of our members are not been paid their call duty and shift allowances for a very long time.”

 

He affirmed that if the management of the hospital failed to address their problems after the warning strike, the workers would embark on an indefinite strike. Meanwhile, doctors at the hospital dissociated themselves from the strike as the chairman, Association of Resident Doctors, AKTH chapter, Dr. Ado Ahmed, said they will continue to manage the hospital by rendering the necessary services to patients.

 

When contacted, the deputy Director, Public Relations Department, Malam Aminu Inuwa, who confirmed understaffing at the hospital, said since the commencement of insurgency, the hospital has lost over 100 nurses. Inuwa who disputed the workers’ claimed about the lack of facilities in the hospital, said the AKTH was one of the most rated in terms of standard facilities, adding that the hospital’s management has no hand in the deductions from the workers’ salaries as the payment was done directly by the government through the IPPS system.