Health workers demand pay, change to “minister” pick

The Nigeria Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP) has demanded that government pay its members at least three different outstanding arrears going back years. The outstanding payments include promotion arrears, arrears accruing from call duty and relativity and arrears from level skipping that’s been practised for years in the health sector. The union, in a […]

The Nigeria Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP) has demanded that government pay its members at least three different outstanding arrears going back years.

The outstanding payments include promotion arrears, arrears accruing from call duty and relativity and arrears from level skipping that’s been practised for years in the health sector.

The union, in a communiqué after its national executives met in Abuja, said the arrears were accumulating and “long overdue.”

The union has also demanded a change in the appointment of health ministers—insisting both the positions of “minister of health” and “minister of state for health” should not be occupied by “medical practitioners only”.

“One should be occupied by a member of allied health professionals, to create balancing and full participation of major stakeholder in policy foundations in the health sector,” the union said in communiqué, signed by its president Obinna Ogbonna.

It said the federal health ministry must audit health workers and recruit more staff to fill gaps in health workforce “due to retirement, resignation and death”.

At the same time, it criticized the federal ministry of health’s implementation of “No work, No way” and demanded that “all withheld salaries of our members in various federal health institutions be paid forthwith to avoid disharmony and industrial crisis in the health sector.”

The union also demanded that hospitals should employ hospital-based consultants, not honorary consultants, to ensure “commitment and dedication of such hospitals that employ them.”

In resolutions on the “state of the nation”, NUAHP said it was dismayed by the “attitude and actions” of the Nigerian Governors Forum for not accepting the recommendations of a tripartite committee whose report was submitted to the presidency.

It urged that the presidency “transmit a bill to the National Assembly to fast track the implementation of the new National Minimum Wage to avoid national industrial crisis.”

Similarly, it called on federal government to quickly resolve its impasse with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which has been on strike for four weeks running, so that students could return to school.