Nurses threat n strike, NMA commends Fashola over anti-smoking law . Studies link financial stress to mental illness CITING poor performance of the current Health Minister, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, health professionals, under the aegis of the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU)/Assembly of Healthcare Professionals Associations (AHPA), have filed a petition to President Goodluck Jonathan, demanding that the Minister of Health be redeployed. The health professionals in the letter, which was signed by Chairman of JOHESU, Dr. Ayuba Wabba and President, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Mr. Olumide Akintayo, also demanded that a medical doctor should not be appointed as Minister of State for Health in the current dispensation in view of the well catalogued ills that have befallen the health sector in the last six years when it became the norm. Part of the letter reads: It is on record that since 2010 when Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu was appointed, the health sector has not witnessed any measure of industrial peace. This is because. the minister has continually acted the script and doubled as an alternate President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) to the detriment of all other healthcare professionals and workers in the sector. In a similar vein, the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives has issued a seven-day ultimatum to the Federal Ministry of Health over its continued refusal to comply fully with the implementation of the Industrial Arbitration Panel awards and subsequent National Industrial Court (NIC) judgments for the 34 years. National President of the association, Abdrafiu Alani Adeniji, who showed journalists several copies of judgments on the matter, alleged that the Ministry of Health and the Head of Service of the Federation had refused to implement the awards in full since 1981, despite the associations repeated appeals and reminders. JOHESU continued: The following are the actions and in actions of the honourable minister: In August 2010, he inaugurated what he called a Presidential Committee headed by Justice Abdullahi Bello Gusau (rtd), which was supposed to complete and submit its report in October 2010 but due to the alleged connivance of the minister with the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) officials, the committee could not submit its report until November 2011, due to lack of funds and constant criticisms by the NMA while the committee was still meeting. The minister caused to be issued five different circulars, which were issued deliberately to weaken the economic strength or position of the non-medical practitioners in the health sector and to pre-empt some of the terms of reference of the committee. When the committees report was submitted in November 2011 and despite the fact that the opening ceremony of the committee at inauguration was well covered by the press, the submission proceedings, which took place in November 2011, was completely blacked out from the media. This was due to the alleged connivance of the minister with the NMA, which sought to disrupt the proceedings. The letter continued: Since his appointment as minister, Chukwu has disobeyed court rulings, refused to honour agreements, flouted Extant Laws of the Federation and has promoted industrial strikes in the sector with a minimum of 10 industrial strikes since he became minister, which are directly caused by his inactions and negation of the right of health workers apart from doctors. The most recent ones being industrial strikes of February to March, 2011; December 2011; May 7 to 13, 2012; National Rally of Decernber 2012; rallies at state capitals in January, 2013; Rallies in federal institutions in February 2013; strike of August 22 to 272013; three-day warning strike from January 22 - 24 2014 and the pending strike threat, which may commence on March 13, 2014 if the scheduled meeting of March 13, fails to address the issues before
Posted on: Fri, 21 Feb 2014 11:41:59 +0000
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