HEALTH workers at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital  (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos, explained yesterday why they are yet   to join    their counterparts   in   other parts   of the country in the on-going nationwide strike embarked on   by the National Union of Allied   Health Professionals  (NAUHP). 

 

Some of the health workers who spoke The Guardian on the condition of anonymity revealed   that the need   to attend   to patients who were already given appointments before the strike commenced has prevented them from joining the strike.

 

The development is coming even as NAUHP President, Mr. Felix Faniran, told The Guardian over the phone yesterday that the strike has been very effective nationwide.  Faniran added that his members were painfully forced   to embark on a nationwide   strike because of the discriminatory practices engineered by the out-going Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu against health workers. 

 

NAUHP, which comprises physiotherapists, radiographers, medical laboratory scientists and dieticians in government’s hospitals, embarked on the nationwide strike to press home their demands, including non-promotion of NAUHP members to directors position, non-payment of specialist allowance, refusal to issue circulars after concluding collective bargaining meetings, complete autonomy for teaching hospitals, composition of management boards of tertiary hospitals, which they said is lopsided in favour of medical practitioners.

 

NAUHP is one of the five critical unions of the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU), which comprises all health workers, except   the medical practitioners. NAUHP strike is already raising fears that the strike may snowball into full blown nationwide strike by JOHESU, as all the unions under the latter are fighting for similar conditions –improved welfare services for members.

 

Although media reports have it that NAUHP strike has been biting hard in other hospitals nationwide, LUTH, which is the largest teaching hospital and one of the two teaching hospitals in Lagos, was rendering full service to patients when The Guardian visited yesterday. At the departments of physiotherapy, radiography, medical laboratory science, appreciable number of patients were seen being attended to by members of staff.   

 

A top official in the Department   of Physiotherapy who did not want to be mentioned in the media revealed that the   department had been attending to patients   since on Thursday, adding, “ Even today (yesterday), we attend to our patients. “  The source, however, added that the development was only temporary, as the NAUPH members in LUTH have resolved to join the strike next week.

Written by Joseph Okoghenun