₦airaland Forum

adeoladrg: ^^ There's no empty threat sir! NMA's idiocy met with tact from FG. You can cover your face and go back to work!

Guy, what are you talking about? salaries were paid as at when due even before the strike was called off......over to JOHESU, was wondering what happened to their planned strike that was set to begin yesterday.

abeg, when is JOHESU going on strike?? Apparently, FG gave in to the demands of NMA.

i see

AriDsexy: Na lie,we are still available o

Available where are u then?

sack doctors and fly abroad for treatment.......what about the poor nigerians??

Ochek: ...and in your rightful mind, the article is an objective one abi? SMH

guy, no time for you

MrsAwesome: Very objective indeed.
I have no time for these anyway, these issue has been over flogged.

No need of reminding you to get your HAMZAT suit for we're going over to Ebola isolation zone.

Dude grow up

MrsAwesome: Very objective indeed.
I have no time for these anyway, these issue has been over flogged.

No need of reminding you to get your HAMZAT suit for we're going over to Ebola isolation zone.

Dude grow up

MrsAwesome: You came late with these,it is stale and sour it has been trashed a long time ago. Seems you graduated yesterday.
Your delusions on the article is so palpable.
Being so Important, wonder why it is taking FG so long to acknowledge your 24 points request.

Remedy for Ebola is the keyword now. All hands must be on deck.

Park well joor
did u not see the objective comments only?
In your deluded mind, it is stale and sour and thats why finding a remedy for Ebola does not include calling off the doctors strike and averting the impending JOHESU strike.

I was highly elated when I read
the letter from JOHESU,Joint
Health Sector Unions, dated
August 4th,2014,threatening our
amiable Secretary to the
Government of the Federation(SGF) with indefinite
strike as from two weeks,starting from August
18th,2014, should the recent decisions the SGF
reached with Nigerian Medical Association(NMA)
be carried out. I think time has come for the
government to take a decisive stance in this
imbroglio just like the biblical Joshua did in those
days by urging the Israelites to choose the God
they would serve. We cannot continue like this in
the health sector,today it is doctors' strike and
tomorrow,it is JOHESU 's strike while the patients
are dying in their numbers.
THE ORIGIN OF JOHESU
Initially,the individual paramedical associations in
the health sector discovered that little importance
was attached to their individual industrial
actions,since whenever they went on strike with
their demands,they would find out that the
hospitals could not feel their absence ,thereafter
they would come and beg to return to work. That
was because medical doctors specialised in all
the fields of the medical profession since the Act
establishing the hospitals empowered the doctors
to do so hence in those days,when nurses went
on strike alone,doctors called house officers along
with patient's relatives took over nursing care of
the patients. When medical laboratory scientists
went on strike,specialist doctors called
pathologists(medical microbiologists, chemical
pathologists, haematologists, histopathologists)
and the hospitals' side labs manned by doctors
became fully operational in order to fill up the gap
created and the doctors called ophthalmologists
were there should the optometrists
misbehave,also the work of physiotherapists and
dieticians is what anybody with MBBS certificate
can easily do. If Radiographers went on strike ,the
doctors called Radiologists would take over the
radiology department,this is how it was and has
continued to be in all the units/departments of
the hospitals till date. Also,pharmacists
discovered that their work in the teaching
hospitals was fast turning into 'sale's boy/girl'
job which anybody that understands doctors
prescriptions can do,no wonder even in private
pharmacy shops owned by pharmacists,they
make use of auxiliary nurses and SSCE holders for
selling their drugs to the members of the public
but coming to government hospitals they want to
sit down and be 'cutting' their own 'national
cake' and at the end the government will be
forced to 'crown' them as consultants without
the required training. Consider for an instance,
their counterparts in other climes are currently
brainstorming on how to find the cure for Ebola
virus disease,while our Nigerian pharmacists are
busy struggling with doctors in alliance with other
non-doctors in our hospitals abandoning their
laboratories but when a doctor who specialised in
pharmacology blazes the trail in finding the drug
treatment of Ebola virus disease,they will then
come to contest with the doctor. Many of the
drugs used in this country are imported simply
because the pharmacists have left their statutory
functions. Can a medical doctor clamour to head
a drug manufacturing company or a pharmacy
shop,citing international best practices as the
reason?
In view of the above,many of these paramedical
professionals decided to come together to form
an alliance,what I may call a coalition,in the name
of JOHESU,and to ensure that the impacts of
their industrial actions were felt in the health
sector they incorporated clerical
workers,cleaners,security men,mortuary
attendants,in fact anybody that works in the
hospital except the doctors hence the aim of
forming JOHESU was and is still to fight doctors
in the health sector. The name Joint Health
Sector Unions is a misnomer ,the rightful name
which summarises their aims and objectives
should have been:Anti-medical doctors union
(AMDU) or better still,Non-medical doctors union
in the health sector(NMDUHS).The members of
JOHESU have more differences than
similarities,believe you me they will soon
incorporate the taxi drivers that ply within the
hospital premises ,the patients' relatives etc and
by extension(possibly outside the hospitals) the
herbalists,traditional bone setters,traditional birth
attendants,patent medicine dealers,maternity
home operators,homeopathic clinic operators into
their amorphous body in order to increase their
numbers.
ACTIVITIES OF JOHESU
When they go on strike,they lock up all the
accessible places thereby intentionally shutting
down the hospital and rendering the efforts of the
doctors nugatory.Imagine a scenario where
everybody in an organisation gangs up against
the manager(the doctors)?The aim of their daily
meetings is how to measure up with doctors and
overthrow them with or without the requisite
qualifications,the same way comrade Napoleon
led other animals to overthrow Mr Jones ,the
manager of the Manor farm,in the Animal Farm by
George Orwell .Even if NMA comes out to say
that Jesus is the founder of Christianity while
Mohammed is the founder of Islam,the members
of JOHESU,acting as gadflies,will be so fastidious
that they will find a fault in this obvious maxim.
The funny thing is that the so-called medical
insurgents are either medical drop-outs(those
that failed out of medicine while in the university)
or those who could not secure admission into
medicine through JAMB UTME. The 'real'
paramedical professionals that willingly chose
their courses as first choice in JAMB UTME know
their positions in the scheme of things in the
health sector hence they don't struggle with the
doctors for the leadership of our hospitals,clinical
departments because they were aware that their
courses were PARAmedical before choosing them
but for those that found themselves accidentally
as paramedical professionals,they want to
measure up with their friends who are now
medical doctors at all costs hence they look out
for countries that allow paramedical professionals
to answer doctors and force us to implement that
in the guise of INTERNATIONAL BEST
PRACTICES. They will tell you countries where
non-medical doctors are chief medical directors
of tertiary hospitals without first considering the
fact that majority of those hospitals abroad are
privately owned. They cannot cite states like
Arizona state of USA where it is a crime to add
'Dr' in one's name even with PhD if one is not a
certified medical doctor. In Nigeria here,many,if
not all,the catholic hospitals are controlled by
reverend sisters who are matrons(senior nursing
officers),has any doctor complained?Any doctor
who chooses to work there,knows that his /her
boss is the reverend sister ,the same is applicable
to other missionary and community-owned
hospitals in Nigeria. The law establishing our
public tertiary hospitals made it clear that only
professionals that are MEDICALLY qualified not
PARAMEDICALLY qualified are eligible to occupy
the offices of the chief medical directors.
Meanwhile,JOHESU members want to be
'ordained' as consultants thereby creating chaos
in the health sector .Many Nigerians have poured
out their ignorance on the pages of the
newspapers since the NMA strike started,a man
said that he checked the synonyms of consultant
in the dictionary and found out that it could be an
advisor,expert, etc,he went on with this show of
shame to ask what was wrong for non-doctors to
answer consultants .Such fellow has failed to
understand that no two similar words are the
same in English language,for an instance, long
and tall are synonyms but one cannot say that
'the man is long'.Also,one word can mean
different things in different contexts. Let us use
the word 'cell' for an instance,to the physicists
and engineers, it means a device that converts a
chemical energy in the electrolytes into electrical
energy,to the biologists it means the smallest
structural and functional unit of life while to the
police it means a small room where suspects are
temporarily kept before being charged to the law
courts. This is an example of the uninformed
public that our honourable minister of health was
challenging the doctors to come out for a public
debate. More so,the proposed debate violates one
of the principles of natural justice, which is
Nemo iudex in causa sua(no one will be a judge
in his own cause/case) as the general public are
the recipient of the ongoing NMA strike.
THE WAY FORWARD
Now that the government has recognised the real
owners of the hospital,they should go on and
privatise other allied health units. For more than
one month that NMA embarked on their indefinite
strike, all activities in the hospitals have come to
a halt even when all the keys to all the accessible
places are in the custody of JOHESU members.
We have experimented in this past one month
that the patients go to the hospital to see the
doctor who will now determine whether the
services of the paramedical professionals will be
requited or not. Now,let us carry out another
experiment since JOHESU has given the
government a two-week ultimatum.The
government should increase the salary of doctors
with enough welfare packages and at the same
time implement the terms of the recent
agreement with doctors while JOHESU is allowed
to proceed on strike on the following conditions:
(1)Private security firms be contracted to man
the hospitals
(2)Private cleaning services firms be contracted
to clean the hospitals including sterilization of
hospital equipment.
(3)Private accounting firms will be contracted to
take over all clerical activities in the hospitals
(4)Private firms be contracted to take over the
servicing and maintenance jobs of our current
Works departments.
(5)Private firms will be contracted to take over
the management of our mortuaries.
(6)Meanwhile,the striking JOHESU members will
be placed on no work,no pay and their salaries
will be divided into three,one part is added to the
salaries of doctors,the next 1/3 goes to the
payment of the private firms while the remaining
1/3 is used for infrastructural development within
the hospital complexes.
(7)Any member of JOHESU that willingly wants
to work with doctors will be allowed to come in
after swearing an affidavit of facts that he/she
will not participate in any union in the health
sector,will not struggle with doctors for leadership
positions,in fact the person must understand the
full meaning of 'para' attached to his/her
profession. When that is done,the hospital
management,on its own part, will ensure that
such an individual is protected from the expected
aggression from his/her former (by then defunct)
JOHESU members .
With the implementation of all our 24 demands by

the government and increment of our salary
packages ,doctors in different units/
departments,who are ubiquitous in the health
sector, will now fill up the gaps created by the
striking JOHESU members restoring the status of
the hospital the way it was when the paramedical
professionals were individually going on strike on
their own before forming the amorphous group
called JOHESU.
Dr Paul John
(A Port Harcourt -based medical practitioner)
mazipauljohn@gmail.com



Objective reactions are welcomed

Over to you.......... mega pastors, who bought jets for evangelism, now your expertise, grace and gifts is needed in iraq where christians are persecuted.....go and minister to this terrorists, they too need Christ

7/Aug/2014
0
VERIFIED: Doctors Have not Suspended Strike
Confusion reigned Thursday
Evening as National Dailies
reported that the Nigeria
Medical Association had called
of their over five-week long
strike. This, the reports
attributed to the recent outbreak of Ebola which
had killed two people and infected five others in
Lagos.
The reports on Nation Newspaper, Vanguard
Newspaper and Medicalworld Nigeria claimed that
a statement was issued by the NMA which cited
“the incursion of Ebola into Nigeria” as a main
reason for suspending the strike.
It is now confirmed that after an intense debate,
which lasted till the early hours of Thursday, the
doctors vowed to continue with the strike.
In a Swift Reaction, the NMA Via its official
twitter handled rebuffed this claim of the strike
being called off on www.medicalworldnigeria.com
urging Journalist on the site to "do well to verify
your info", adding categorically and emphatically
that "The strike has not been called off".
NEWS24NIGERIA : http://www.news24.com.ng/
National/News/Doctors-suspend-strike-over-
Ebola-crisis-20140807
THE NATION NEWSPAPER : http://
thenationonlineng.net/new/doctors-suspend-
strike-over-ebola/
VANGUARD NEWSPAPER: http://
www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/doctors-
suspend-strike-citing-ebola-crisis/

just wish the government could find a way of solving this johesu vs nma problem cuz its the poor masses that suffers it all.

The Nigeria Medical Association
has resolved to continue with its
strike action against the
Government.
This decision was reached at
the end of an all night extensive deliberations at
her Emergency Delegates meeting.
The NMA also insisted that it was evident that
contrary to insinuation from various quarters, the
demands made are yet to be met and issues not
adequately addressed.
The NMA also added that they are open to further
negotiation and will not do anything that would
compromise the sanity of the Nigeria Health sector
now or in the future.

His Excellency,
Sen. Anyim pius Anyim
Secretary to the government of
the federation,
Aguda House, Abuja
Your Excellency,
Inclusive Labour Relations - Essential for Public
Health care Delivery
We bring you good tidings and continue to wish
your excellency the very best as you tackle
various challenges in the task of nation building.
Recent developments, with regards to the health
sector, compel us to reach out to you again, as
they pose a danger to the necessary stability for
quality public health care delivery.

The Joint health sector unions have continued to
observe and appraise governments negotiations
with the striking doctors under the aegis of the
NMA. Ordinaritly, in line with existing labour
laws, the NMA, a professional association of
doctors is certainly not a legitimate platform to
negotiate conditions of service of its members.
We have on numerous occasions drawn the
attention of the federal government to this reality
in addition to a court judgement on same by the
national industrial court of nigeria, enugu,
unfortunatley though, Governments continued
negotiations with NMA has confirmed that the
government has found it convenient to sacrifce
the interest of other health professionals and the
rule of law yet again to favour the NMA.
While the government gives the impression on one
hand to JOHESU that some of our demands have
been referred to the yayale ahmed presidential
committee for mediation, government has actually
gone ahead to accede to all the 24 comandments
of the NMA, including issuing new circulars in
june and july to ourtrightly jeopardize the MOU of
june 5, 2014 as authenticated by our team and
that of government.
Specifically, we put on record that government
has outrightly compromised the welfare of our
members and the promotion of harmonoius
industrial relations and peace in the health sector
in the reflected areas:
1) That appointments into the position of deputy
chairman - Medical advisory committe (DCMAC)
will continue. This is despite the fact that the
enabling act setting up teaching hospitals in
Nigeia has no provision for this position, making
such appointment outrightly illegal.
2) Government has agreed with NMA that health
workers will no longer be allowed to get to the
apex of their careers in the public service as
provided for in their schemes of service to satisfy
the ego trip of nigeria doctors.
3) An approval of the skipping of CONMESS 3 by
doctors amounts to a violation in the relativity of
the CONHESS and CONMESS Scales. This
relativity should remain sacrosant in the spirit of
the 2009 collective bargaining agreement
4) Tragically, and in what is certainly a climax of
the absurd, government has again traded away
the rights of all health workers, other than
doctors, to be designated consultants in their
areas of competence through a new circular that
now provides unholy clauses that read inter alia
"the designation of consultants should only be
used for personnel with qualifications registrable
with the medical and dental council of nigeria"
MH/PM 138/Vol.111/83 18th july 2014. It is
ridiculous that consultancy status approved for
health care providers will be at the whims and
caprices of MDCN, an agency that regulates only
doctors.
5) Government continues to dilly dally on the
payment of arrears of our members, following
approval of adjustments on the CONHESS Scale
as approved since jan 2014, while it has now
come with specific action plan for payment of
doctors
6) The distasteful withdrawal of the CBN circular
on the importation of invitro diagnostic, on the
prompting of NMA, gives the impression that
government will never stop treating the welfare of
other healthworkers with disdain as NMA and its
members continue to enjoy a free reign in
dictating the latitudes and dimensions the interest
of its members can be regulated in the health
sector.
7) Government policy now compels a formal
training at the expense of the federal government,
exclusively for resident
doctors in a multidisciplinary sector, where a
plethora of care providers are burdened with
training and manpower development at their own
costs.
Attempts by government to formally restrict
appointments of CMD/CMACs to only doctors
while deceiving the joing healht sector unions that
the matter had been refered to the yayale ahmed
presidential panel for mediation
Your Excellency, the joint health sector unions
has treated you and your esteem office with
profound respect, but what we have received in
return is obvious contempt, ridicle and delibrate
design to perpetually treat or regard members of
joint health sector unions as a second class
rated professional and citizen in the health sector
simply because we have remained law abiding.
Today our members who constitute over 95
percent of the workforce in the health sector
deride us, as their representatives who only sign
worthless MOUs while NMA which has no respect
for the rule of law, is the sacred cow handled
with kid gloves. Your excellency, it is an irony
that this administrations celebrated rule of law
mantra, does not hold sway in our sector.
The Joint Health sector union continues to be
civil and .....
it is thus strange that while the federal
government of nigeria disregards the legal and
legitimate collective agreements reached with
bona fide unions under the joint health sector
unions platform, it upholds the dictates of a
singular professional association, up to and
including jettisoning positions secured through
bargaing and event the courts of the land, by
JOHESU
It is not too late for the right steps to be taken to
ensure justice, peace and stability in the health
sector. And we urge you to use your kind office to
effect this without delay
Thus, your Excellency, if government does not
immediately redress the palpable injustice we
have drawn your attention to by issuing
approrpriate circulars in the next two weeks, then
government leaves us with no choice than to
review our suspended strike of January 2014,
after the expiration of our ultimatum
Thank you your excellency
your faithfully
Comrade (Dr.) Ayuba Wabba (chairman, jOINT
HEALTH SECTOR UNIONS)
Comrade Yusuf badmus W.G (Secretary JOINT
HEALTH SECTOR UNIONS)

timowale: I believe its rather you that needs some more enlightenment and orientation into what is the current 'acceptable best practices the world over.Nigeria had spent so much time in ignorance placing much premium on paper certification in place of skill acquisition combined putting its citizens at the mercies of certifified killers in disguise as medical practitioners.our nation should wake fast from its long sleep and get accostumed to what has become the best practise of care in which competencies in separate chosen fields in health management are given the pride of place.let nurses,doctors 'pharmacists and other professioners rise to the peak of their separate careers and watch the unimaginable progress that comes thereafter.I rest my case!

@ doctors being certified killers, seriously!!!!!!!
U Are taking this personal, dude, u are deluded......u need help, go see a shrink
By the way, medical schools around the country are still taking students........just thought you might want to know

pembisco: ..and u ar dulll. No iidiate owns any patient. Any moment a patient is at any health woka's service, dt woka is respnsible fo d patient. If a patient is at lab, he belongs to d scientist, same wit pharmacy nd ward.

Hey dude, dis just go to shows how conversant u are with the health sector,but here you are commenting....its not cool that you insulted drkay....just to minimize any confusion, am a doctor and a doctor owns the patient and that why a doctor is held reSponsible if anything goes wrong and a doctor gives referral letter should the patient decide to leave.......if the doctor who is in charge is going on strike wats the point of leaving the patient in bed.....go get some education dumbass and as for the JOHESU, I am yet to figure out between you and them who have a higher IQ