Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / NewStats: 3,194,471 members, 7,954,840 topics. Date: Saturday, 21 September 2024 at 10:35 AM |
Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Health / Why Pharmacists, Other Health Workers Are Resuming Strike. (1175 Views)
All Health Workers Can Now Be Consultants-fg / Breaking!! Six More Health Workers Infected With EBOLA!! / Salaries Of Doctors And Other Health Workers In Some Countries (2) (3) (4)
(1) (Reply)
Why Pharmacists, Other Health Workers Are Resuming Strike. by adeoladrg(m): 2:25pm On Oct 16, 2014 |
Threatens erring members over privatisation • Uyo to host conference of society THERE appears to be no end in sight for crisis in the health sector as pharmacists under the aegis of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) have accused the federal government of reneging on agreement signed with health workers under the umbrella of Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) on improved welfare of members. The PSN said strike is not unlikely despite the maturity of JOHESU and Assembly of Healthcare Professionals (AHPA) as it is apparent that government will not bulge until another round of disruption in health services becomes a reality. The Society, which is set to hold its 87th Annual National Conference in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State from Monday November 3 to Saturday November 8th, 2014, has also issued a clarion call on pharmacists, pharmaceutical companies and stakeholders to familiarise with the tenets of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) guidelines of the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) before formalising contracts with public pharmacy facilities. National President of PSN, Olumide Akintayo, in an exclusive interview with The Guardian said violations of existing provisions of the PPA Cap 535 LFN 1990, Cap P. 17 LFN 2004, gazettes 79 and 81 of August 2005 and the code of ethics for pharmacists in Nigeria will attract sanctions from the PSN as erring members will be placed on the roll of dishonour of the Society. On the welfare on health workers and the imminent strike action, Akintayo said: “I have no doubt that you will recall that about seven months ago at this very venue on January 6, 2014, I addressed the nation alongside the Chairmen of JOHESU and AHPA on crucial matters pertaining to the welfare of health workers and inter-professional relationships. Alongside these key platforms of trade unions and professionals associations, we issued an ultimatum for a strike, which eventually crystallised on January 22, 2014. “You will remember that what followed was a total shut-down of health facilities across the nation including primary, secondary and tertiary facilities. Government and public appeals forced us on that occasion to temporarily suspend the strike in the hope that government will be more responsive by identifying with the minimum demands of these templates which we continually remind all who care to listen embraces over 95 per cent of the entire health workforce in Nigeria. “I wish to put on record that seven months after we commenced a robust attempt to redress the unfortunate status quo in healthcare in Nigeria, we are still left in the cold. Government as a matter of fact has traded off salient Memoranda Of Understanding (MOUs) it signed with us in a bid to placate doctors when they embarked on their unlawful and illegal strike for seven weeks between July and August.” Akintayo said the experience since these chain of events has been for government to become elusive by tactically relegating most areas of their demand as subject matters that have been referred to the Yayale Ahmed led Presidential Committee of experts who seek harmony in the health sector. He said while the PSN appreciates that Mallam Yayale Ahmed, a seasoned bureaucrat and the crop of distinguished health professionals who work with him may mean well in charting an agenda that moves the health sector forward, the fact of the matter is that it is still largely an advisory/administrative panel which logically implies that if it comes up with some recommendations not acceptable to groups or some dramatis personae the recommendations might not be binding. Akintayo insusted that government reliance on the Yayale Ahmed panel to right all wrongs in the sector may epitomise a grandeur of delusion or an unrealisable utopia as pharmacists remain witnesses to how the federal ministry of health in alliance with some Nigerian doctors sabotaged the noble recommendations of the Justice Gusau panel a few years ago. “That development was hinged on the reality that the Gusau panel report touched without fear specific measures to correct the aberrations and distortions in healthcare especially those entrenched by the obnoxious decree 10 of 1985 which remains the albatross we contend with in the health sector since the inglorious days of late Olikoye Kuti. Prof. Olikoye Kuti, it was who disrupted the harmony in the health sector by legalising the headship of hospitals, which he vested in his doctor colleagues as well as introducing discriminatory salary wages in favour of his colleagues, a development which is responsible for the industrial disharmony we have experienced in the labour sector for over 23 years now,” he further explained. Akintayo said the PSN puts on record that government has failed to come up with circulars in tandem with MOUs it has signed with the labour unions, JOHESU, in fundamental areas. These fundamental areas include: Non promotion of members from salary Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) 14 to15 as directors having stayed for four to15 years on the same salary level without promotion in most Federal Tertiary Hospitals; immediate release of circular on adjustment of salary since January 2014 and immediate payment of at least two months arrears while the remaining is paid after being accommodated in the 2015 budget; immediate release of the circular on extension of retirement age to be back dated to February 2014 when the issue was presented to National Council on establishment; immediate and full payment of arrears of salaries of CONHESS 10 skipping outstanding since the year 2010; and immediate amendment of the circular on consultancy status as pronounced by National Industrial Court on 22nd July, 2013, and agreed to at a meeting of 12th August, 2014, with the Federal Government. Others include: Payment of arrears of specialist allowance to qualified hospital based professionals with effect from January 1, 2010 in line with National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) ruling; minimizing the lopsidedness in the membership of Boards of Management of Tertiary Hospitals; need to define the functions and power of honourary consultants in Teaching Hospitals and the need to appoint more hospital based consultants instead of Honourary Consultants; need for residency programme for all health professionals; issuance of guidelines on appointment of Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee and the committee’s composition; need for complete autonomy for the Teaching Hospitals by removing University lecturers as heads in some of the clinical departments; and restoration of working days as annual leave. Akintayo said the direct fall-out is that a whole generation of pharmacists and health workers are stagnated on the same salary scale for upwards of 10 years in many instances. He said in some other dimensions Pharmacists and health workers who have invested personal resources on professional and manpower development are denied reward for labour as government which showed initial interest in remunerating the fellowship programme has succumbed to the blackmail of Nigeria doctors who insist through the proclamation of the Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu led Federal Ministry of Health that it is only doctors who can be designated consultants contrary to international best practice and a 1976 public service circular that recognises consultancy status for eligible health professionals. Akintayo said the experience of pharmacists appears worse because as far back as 1997 the West Africa Postgraduate College of Pharmacists (WAPCP) produced the first set of Fellows. He further explained: “The fellowship of the WAPCP was formally recognised as a condition precedent for a consultancy status in Nigeria since 2009, yet the Federal Government has failed to remunerate these consultant pharmacists because another group of employees say it is unacceptable. “While pharmacists pay with their own resources for Post-graduate training, government often times pays through scholarships and subsidies for the training of doctors.” On the possibility of another round of industrial action by health workers, Akintayo said: “One is forced to wonder loudly why government must wait for the threat of a strike before it concedes to legitimate privileges to its workers. The reality of a strike is not unlikely despite the maturity of JOHESU and AHPA as it is apparent that government will not bulge until another round of disruption in health services becomes a reality. “Beyond strikes which pose severe economic consequences morbidity and outright fatalities the Nigerian government must realise that its recent strategies to impose a master-servant relationship in the health sector is beginning to generate ripple effects at the detriment of national development.” The pharmacist said new generations of Nigerians who naturally abhor an underdog status are shunning science-based programmes other than medicine beyond the frontiers of healthcare now. Akintayo said a recent survey in one of the first generation universities confirmed that 53.8 per cent of applications for the sciences was for only medicine, while the other science based professional courses including pharmacy, engineering, architecture, estate management and others shared 46.2 per cent. He said the result was that cut of mark for medicine at the post-jamb examination was put at over 80 per cent at a time other course could not meet up quotas. “This is the reality we shall confront in a nation where ego propensities count for so much. The PSN therefore admonishes government to be dispassionate in redressing matters of equitable distribution of resources and privileges in healthcare or to seriously consider scrapping other professional programmes it has treated with contempt in the last couple of years,” he added. On the issue of privatisation of pharmacy facilities and the sanction of erring members, Akintayo said: “The attention of the PSN has been drawn to recent public notices emanating from the Registry of the PCN with regards to a PPP philosophy. We at PSN believe very much in the spirit of a private sector driven economy and logically support the concept of legitimate models of a PPP. “Pharmacy practice is a regulated one with a myriad of regulatory agencies having substantial latitudes of influence. These agencies include PCN, National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Federal and State Task force as well as an array of other statutory agencies of government.” He said the Society is worried at attempts by some state governments to reduce pharmacy practice to a purely commercial venture of buying and selling with absolutely no standards in the guise of a PPP. Akintayo said there are patients who visit public hospitals only because they assume drugs in such facilities will be genuine in the reality of an existing fake drug syndrome which continues to ravage the health sector. This, he said, is why the PSN continues to caution on the consequences of diverting a guaranteed public sector market in pharmacy facilities to private profiteers. Akintayo said some of the fundamental fall-outs that will always suffice remains who takes responsibility when anything goes wrong with respect to drugs dispensed in such public facilities concession to profiteers. He explained: “The profiteer or government? Presently the Lagos State Government, which blazed this trail has been able to adapt its privatisation model to the PPP guidelines prescribed by the PCN. There can be no compromise on this demand in both the public and professional interest.” Akintayo said some of the Federal Health Institutions (FHIs), which experimented with privatisation in pharmacy facilities, are still in huge mess even after such contracts have been terminated because the profiteers who utilised the goodwill of the institutions to source drugs from the pharmaceutical industry simply sold the drugs and pocketed the accruing revenue. He said many of the pharmaceutical companies refuse to do business with public health facilities up till now with serious consequences for consumers of health in such institutions. Akintayo said the PSN therefore issues a clarion call on pharmacists, pharmaceutical companies and stakeholders to familiarise with the tenets of the PPP guidelines of the PCN before formalising contracts with public pharmacy facilities. Violations of existing provisions of the PPA Cap 535 LFN 1990, Cap P. 17 LFN 2004, gazettes 79 and 81 of August 2005 and the code of ethics for Pharmacists in Nigeria will attract sanctions from the PSN as erring pharmacists will be placed on the roll of dishonour of the PSN. The PSN appealed to affected state governments and other stakeholders to dialogue immediately with the PCN to facilitate lawful models of PPP in their domains in public interest. On the 87th Annual National Conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria will hold in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State from Monday November 3 to Saturday November 8, 2014, Akintayo said: “This conference comes with new packages including the maiden Deans Forum, Directors of Pharmaceutical Services Forum, and Head of Pharma, Federal Health Institutions Forum as part of our agendum to boost human relationship management. As part of arrangements with PCN to revolutionalise Mandatory Continuing Professional Development (MCPD) credit point earnings, the continuing education segment of the conference will hold at the ultra-modern e-library facility of the Akwa Ibom State Government in Uyo. “The Board of Fellow and Young Pharmacists Group will be energised through new processes to optimise their potentials. An official social nite will be hosted at some stages while the VIP forum, which debuted in Ilorin last year will be consolidated.” Akintayo said the major highlight of the opening ceremony would be awards of Ambassadors of the Health Sector to four distinguished Nigerians, which include: Governor of Ebonyi State, Chief Martin Elechi; Chairman of JOHESU, Commrade Ayuba Wabba; Chairman, AHPN, Dr. G. C. Okara; and Chief Medical Director, University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan, Prof. Temitope Alonge. Source: The Guardian. |
Re: Why Pharmacists, Other Health Workers Are Resuming Strike. by Samgreguc(m): 4:06pm On Oct 16, 2014 |
PPP |
(1) (Reply)
Herbal Benefit Of Medical Marijuana (cannabis) / Please I Need Your Help. / Money Spells In The World To Have A Lot Of Money And Wealth Call Henrydungu +25
(Go Up)
Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 64 |