Over six weeks after the larger segment of the nation’s medical personnel that make Nigeria’s health sector bubble, embarked on nation-wide sit-at-home strike, and the federal government appears to be foot-dragging, the acting Chief Medical Director of the Lagos Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Professor Chris Bode has captured the situation in these few words: “one day of a strike is a loss of so many things, not only lives, but health to people.”
In essence, this is what the nation has been thrown into and, Nigerians in their hundreds are dying silently in their various homes even as the health sector headed for the abyss.
Health workers, under the canopy of Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) comprising nurses, physiotherapists, medical laboratory scientists, pharmacists, occupational therapists, optometrists, dieticians, medical social workers and clinical psychologists, embarked on an indefinite nationwide strike on November 12 over issues relating to appointments and relativity in federal health care institutions.
Since November 12, it has been a tale of sufferings for the populace, especially those who cannot afford the bills charged in private hospitals.
A relative of a patient on admission in one of the government hospitals said that his sister was operated on just before the strike but that since the health workers began to sit-at-home, nobody was available to do the dressing of the point of opening. “She had an appendicitis operation but had not fully healed when the health workers started their strike. Doctors have been checking her but she is not getting all the dressing she needs, so I will be taking her out of the hospital to a private clinic.”
For those who cannot afford the services of a private hospital, the situation is much tougher. While some have resorted to patronizing quacks, road-side patent medicine stores and chemists, and indulging in self-medication, others visit spiritual houses and some others prefer to stay at home with hopes that the strike would be called off soon enough. Not many live to see the lingering muscle-flexing between the health workers and the almighty government.
Across the country, there is a frightening development in which patients are not being admitted for medical attention, except in special circumstance, for emergency cases. Even at that, after being stabilized, patients that are attended to in emergency are discharged and shut out of further treatments. Only a very negligible few continue further treatment in private hospitals that charge cut-throat prices.
As a matter of fact, the common thing that runs in many poverty-ridden homes across the country now is the resort to local management of the sick persons, hundreds of who die in the process. This is as the nation’s health workers idle away at home because the government, more appropriately, the President of the country, has chosen to ignore them, treating the health of Nigerians with neglect and high level of levity.
Some of the demands of health workers which led to the declaration of an indefinite nationwide strike after the meeting of National Executive Council (NEC) of the union on August 30th, 2014 at Asokoro District Hospital are:
i. Adjustment of CONHESS salary as done for the NMA in the same sector.
ii. Payment of Arrears on skipping of CONHESS 10 since year 2010.
iii. Promotion of our members from CONHESS 14 to 15 for over ten years.
iv. Appointment of our members as Chief Medical Directors.
v. Abolition of the post of Deputy Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee.
vi. Immediate circularization of retirement age of Healthcare workers from 60 to 65 years.
vii. Immediate payment of arrears of Specialist allowance to all Hospital based Healthcare Professionals who possess relevant post graduate qualification, that is, MSc, Phd or post graduate fellowship who have attained the Consultant grade level 14 in the public service or CONHESS 13 in the Teaching Hospital sector and above.
viii. Immediate release of circular amending the extant circular for Medical Laboratory Scientists Interns to include post NYSC placement on grade level 09 step 2 and the upgrading of stale Officers across board.
ix. Others.
And since the strike began, the union’s leadership and federal government representatives were said to have held series of meetings, including the ones of 15th October, 2014, 9th November, 2014, 13th November, 2014, 19th November, 2014, 15th December, 2014 and 22nd December, 2014.
In all these meetings, the only progress said to have been made is the decision of the Federal Government to re-calculate the financial implication of the proposed salary adjustment of workers salary on CONHESS structure as against the one they did in April, 2014.
The Minister of Labour and Productivity who presided over the 22nd December 2014 meeting promised the aggrieved health workers that he would meet the President to receive approval leading to the issuance of circular on the said matter.
And, more than two weeks after such promise by the minister, nothing has come out of the government to indicate that a way out of the logjam has been found. As a matter of fact, it looks as if the campaigns for elections in February this year have now overwhelmed the President and relevant government functionaries, so much that the health sector of the nation has been pushed to the background.
How, for God sake, can the government be so callous that it feels virtually comfortable with a situation where the essential health workers stay out of work for more than six weeks and hundreds of its citizens are dying in silence? That the situation seems not to bother the leadership speaks volume about the character and personalities that are in the driving seat.
We in Greenbarge Reporters, are very sad about the situation, especially as poor masses are dying in silence in their hundreds daily for the levity with which the leaders are treating their health matters.
We don’t want to believe that President Goodluck Jonathan is inadvertently waiting for the politicians in opposition to come breathing down his neck again on how to handle the issue with the urgency it deserves: the move that the President would ascribe again to playing politics with the health of the citizenry. [myad]
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