The Chief Medical Director of Benin city Edo state, CMD, University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Prof. Michael Ibadin, has appealed to members of the Joint Health Workers Union, JOHESU, in the country, who have been on strike since December 12, 2014 to suspend their strike and return to the negotiation
table.
He said the masses have the right to demand services for which the health workers are paid, adding that government was still paying their salaries and allowances even though they were on strike with the hope that this would create room for negotiation.
Prof. Ibadin, who spoke to newsmen in Benin, Edo State, on the on-going JOHESU strike, said that the strike was dragging for too long, adding that it was the ordinary masses that suffer the effect of the strike as many patients who were transferred from one hospital to another as a result of the on-going strike died in the process.
He said: “Sixty-five to 75 percent of the workforce was not there. Members of the public are the major beneficiaries of our services. We have asked our doctors to continue to run their clinics. The dialysis centre is functioning, ICU is functioning, but this is a public hospital and members of the public want full medical services. Total and social loss due to the strike is monumental. This strike has been on for too long.”
On promotion of JOHESU members, Prof. Ibadin said that a panel of experts on inter-professionalism, headed by former Head of Service of the Federation, Alhaji Ahmed Yayale, initiated by the Federal Government to look into the issue, adding that the government had since dinstructed that the White Paper on the findings should be made public.
He said that nobody has been denied promotion in UBTH at any salary level, adding that the adjustment in their salaries cannot be done immediately until there was a budgetary provision for such.
He claimed the strike was affecting UBTH, “as some departments are not running effectively.”
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