RAYMOND OZOJI reports
Anambra health workers have made a public outcry that they are living in abject penury and squalor because of what they described as poor conditions of service, underpayments, non-implementation of 2009 Consolidated Salaries for Health Workers (CONHESS) and a host of other problems facing them.
As a result of the foregoing, they have resolved to embark on strike 4th September this year to draw Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo's attention to their plights and predicaments.
They said their services would be withdrawn from the hospitals and patients may die indiscriminately due to their absence from the health facilities.
Briefing journalists at the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital Amaku Awka, the union leaders comrade Charles Nwoye Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals Anambra State Chapter, Dr. Ikedi Onah Deputy General Secretary National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives and comrade Afam Udeozo, Secretary of the Anambra State Chapter of Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals, who presented issues health workers are contending with, maintained that they are being marginalized and neglected in the state health sector.
They said that their agitations began last year when they requested that Anambra State Health Workers be remunerated in line with what the federal government has approved for health workers in the country since 2010.
They said other states of the federation have adopted it and implemented it but Anambra state hasn't even as they revealed that health workers are moving away from Anambra to not just the United Kingdom and Canada but to neighbouring states like Enugu, Delta, Imo and other states, noting that the situation is really pathetic.
Although they appreciated Governor Soludo's efforts for employments in the health sector but insisted that the governor needed to know that if the remuneration is not proper, the exodus of health workers from the state will continue without end.
The union leaders recalled that health professionals were recruited last year but expressed worry that more than half of them have exited from the service to seek better working conditions not just overseas but nearby places.
They pointed out that about 90% of the health workers at the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital Amaku Awka are still writing job applications and attending interviews at Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital Nnewi, Park Lane Enugu, Orthopedic Hospital Enugu, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital Enugu, Federal Medical Centre Onitsha, Federal Medical Centre Asaba, Delta State General Hospital Asaba, to mention a few.
They were of the opinion that the state teaching hospital does not have enough human resource for health and that they have had issues of losing their members to deaths due to inability to take care of their health and hospital bills, adding that a lot of their members are not properly covered in the state health insurance scheme.
The union leaders who addressed journalists on behalf of their members, said government officials have told them that if they are not comfortable with what Governor Soludo is paying them, they should go to another state to seek greener pastures there. They were of the opinion that the governor's aides are presenting him bad light because they believe that Soludo can not be mean and insensitive to the plights of health workers in Anambra State whom they said are living in abject poverty and privation.
They however reinforced their position that Soludo is interested in the plights of health workers in Anambra state but doesn't know how to intervene. They said they have been patient and that their members want to go on strike. That the press conference was held so that government could profer solution to their problems before 4th September, when the strike will officially begin.
##
0 Comments