The Joint Health Sector Unions
(JOHESU) has called off strike in Lagos, Kano, Yobe and Niger states.
Addressing a press conference in
Abuja on Thursday, Biobelemoye Josiah (pictured), JOHESU chairman, called on
all health workers in the four states to
relax the strike following the “implementation” of the agreement by the states.
He also asked President Muhammadu
Buhari to sack Isaac Adewole, minister of health, for allegedly taking sides
with doctors in the ongoing strike.
Josiah demanded a new negotiating
team to replace that of Chris Ngige, minister of labour and employment.
He said being a medical doctor,
Ngige has also been compromised in the efforts to end the strike.
JOHESU commenced strike on April
17. Part of their demands is the upward review of their salaries to be at same
level with the doctors, a request both the federal government and the doctors
kicked against.
“The federal ministry of health
as presently led by Prof. Isaac Adewole has constituted itself as a major
hindrance to fruitful deliberation as he has never disguised his intention to
symbolise the propaganda machine of the NMA through his posturing at all our
meetings, which necessitated JOHESU to take a position that the negotiations
were structured to fail ab-initio,” he said.
“Prof. Isaac Adewole is on record
to have insisted that the wage structure in the health sector must reckon with
what was obtainable in the 1991 late Prof. Olikoye Ransome –Kuti’s dual salary
system (MSS and HSS) which marked the beginning of persistent acrimony until it
was corrected through the harmonised tertiary institutions salary Structure and
HAPSS in 2003.
“The ministers of labour and
health, who are both members of the NMA, have taken a position that parity must
entail a basic salary differential in the emolument of health professionals and
their doctor colleagues.
“As bonafide citizens, we however
reject a slave mentality which present salary wages confers on us.”
The press conference held the
same day the National Industrial Court, Abuja, ordered all health workers to
resume within 24 hours.
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