FG, Health Workers Trade Barbs as Strike Paralyses National Hospital, Others

The Federal Government and the Joint Health Sector Unions have engaged in blame game over who is responsible for the ongoing strike by health workers, which has threatened the lives of Nigerians across the country. This is coming as activities in the National Hospital Abuja and other secondary health institutions across Nigeria have been paralysed following the industrial action. Speaking to THISDAY yesterday, the National Chairman of JOHESU, Mr. Biobelemoye Josiah blamed the federal government for insensitivity over the plight of their members. Josiah singled out the Ministers of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole as well as that of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige, as the biggest culprit in the alleged scheme to frustrate efforts of the health workers to get fair treatment. He accused the duo of Adewole and Ngige of intimidation and discrimination against JEHOSU members instead of engaging the union to resolve the issue. According to him, the Minister of Health is trying to use divide and rule tactics to break their ranks, but assured listeners that they remain resolute in their quest to get justice. He said: “To the best of my knowledge, the federal government has failed to reach out to us and the Ministry of Health in its cruelty is now applying the method of intimidation to also divide us but we are not affected. “Two years ago the Ministry of Health adopted the policy of intimidation of ‘no work, no pay’. As we speak, our members at the FMC Owerri have not been paid for over four months.” Speaking further, the JOHESU President also said the Ministries are working contrary to the anti-corruption drive of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration that authorised the Whistle-Blower policy. According to him, some of their members are being punished for exercising the rights of whistleblower policy to expose the rots in the system. “They threatened those who want to insist and comply with the whistle-blower policy and isolate them from the others they were able to intimidate. This is simply ‘divide and rule’ tactics but we are not deterred at all,” he said. On Ngige, he also accused the minister of taking sides with members of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) and ARD over JOHESU According to Josiah, “the NMA and ARD behave as trade unions and enjoy recognition and patronage of the federal ministry of health and sit with government to negotiate for the federal ministry of labour and employment just because the minister of labour, who should be an arbiter but chooses to close his eyes to such illegality, is himself a medical doctor.”