Nigeria Content Online

One month after
primary and secondary health care services in Akwa Ibom State came to a
halt, the situation remains so with the state government not making
little or no effort to resolve the crisis.

On December 8,
2010, all the health workers of government owned hospitals, including
all pharmacists, nurses, midwives, laboratory technicians, and
administrative personnel, embarked on an industrial action demanding
for the implementation of a salary structure approved by the National
Salary Income and Wages Commission late in 2009.

The Akwa Ibom State
chairman of the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives
(NANNM), Udeme Ottong, said that the Godswill Akpabio led government
has refused to approve the new salary structure, the Consolidated
Health Salary Structure (CONHESS), after many months of negotiations.

“The CONHESS was
approved since December 2009. The strike started in June 2010. We
eventually suspended that strike in August because of the intervention
of his Excellency. He set up a committee to look into the matter. The
report was supposed to be ready in three weeks but the committee
eventually sent that report in October to the state executive council.
Since then, the state executives have refused to sign that document,”
Mr Ottong said in a telephone interview with NEXT yesterday.

He continued that
his association as well as the other health workers’ associations
embarked on the strike action after sending notices to the state
government without getting any response.

No medical services

The state chairman
of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Etiobong Etukumana, insists
that medical doctors in the state, who are still officially on duty,
are rendering health services to patients in the various clinics and
hospitals.

“All I can tell you is that my doctors are working to the best of their abilities,” Mr Etukumana said.

However, a Chief
Nursing Officer in one of the General Hospitals in the state, who asked
not to be named, told NEXT that no health services are being rendered
in any of the government owned hospitals in the state as it is
impossible for the doctors to work on their own.

“All the health
workers except the doctors are on strike and the doctors cannot work by
themselves. For example, the staff in charge of the medical records
have locked up the records office. The lab is locked. The pharmacy is
closed. The OPD [Outpatient Department] is not open because the nurses
are not available. So virtually everything is at a standstill,” she
said.

Government’s response

While he remained
unwilling to say when the state hospitals will be functional again, the
Akwa Ibom State commissioner for information, Aniekan Umanah, said the
state is currently carrying on several social services and cannot be
expected to yield to demands by every labour group.

“There is no salary
structure that is cast in iron. It is relative to the resources
available for social services. The state is already carrying out
several services such as the free education. The health workers should
show interests in the overall wellbeing of the state,” he said.

Mr Umanah said also that he hoped that the issue will soon be resolved.

“I am telling you that it will soon be resolved. I know that the
people in charge are discussing with the labour unions,” he said.