Isaac Adewole, minister of
health, on Monday directed the governing boards of federal tertiary health
institutions to convene emergency meetings and order striking health workers to
return to work.
The minister gave the directive
during an emergency meeting with chief medical directors and medical directors
of tertiary hospitals on Monday in Abuja.
Boade Akinola, director, media
and public relations of the ministry, said the emergency meeting was to review
the status of services being rendered in view of the ongoing strike by JOHESU
members.
Members of Joint Health Sector
Workers Union (JOHESU) have been on strike over pay parity with medical doctors
since April 17.
The minister said anyone who
failed to resume would be considered to have absconded from duty without leave,
which is a serious misconduct in line with public service rule 030413.
He said monitoring teams were
dispatched to the tertiary hospitals to assess the activities in various
hospitals.
He said the monitoring teams
submitted reports to the ministry which revealed that some hospitals were doing
well in providing care, while others were performing below expectation.
Adewole commended the facilities
that were offering full services using locum Staff and volunteers and directed
immediate restoration of full services in all other facilities.
He singled out facilities in
north-east, north-west and south-south zones for outstanding performance.
The minister said there was no
reason any hospital should not have one ward per specialty open for operation.
Adewole said one gynaecology
ward, one obstetrics ward, one paediatric ward, one surgical ward and one
medical ward, should be kept functioning immediately in facilities yet to do
so.
“The clinics must run, theatre
must be opened, there is no reason why they should lock your theatre. No one
has the right to lock up government hospitals,” the minister said.
Adewole said everyone who
participated in the strike would not be paid for the period of the strike even
if the strike was called off.
“We want you to go back and
restore services in your various institutions immediately,” he said.
The minister urged chairmen of
the boards to take charge of their facilities and that any chief executive not
willing to keep the services running should be suspended and be replaced with
another officer in acting capacity.
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