Joint Health Sector Union threatens to down tools over unpaid salary arrears

Doosuur Iwambe, Abuja

The Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) in collaboration with NLC/TUC have disclosed its intention to stage national rally in Abuja on Monday to draw the attention of the federal government to what they described as “unjustified withholding of salaries of its members”. JOHESU President, Josiah Biobelemoye said that the action has become necessary to put an end to the unending tyranny targeted against health workers. Addressing a news conference in Abuja on Friday, Biobelemoye said that the branch executive representatives in federal health institutions and state chairman/secretaries of all members unions of JOHESU have been specially invited to attend a crucial meeting slated to commence at 8 am on Monday, February 4. According to the JOHESU President, the meeting will determine the next action to be taken by the union. While calling on its members to remain alert to await further directives which will be communicated to them from the headquarters, Biobelemoye called on the federal government to immediately facilitate reward of labour to its members. “We are calling on the federal government to immediately facilitate reward for labour, especially, to our members who have been tortured and afflicted at unprecedented levels in the last three and half years by the coalition of forces the federal ministry of health have continued to epitomize. JOHESU also called on its members to get their voters card ready in order to make the needed impact in the forth general elections,. “JOHESU calls on its over one million members, their spouses and voting age children who together form a block of over two million and tending to four million voters to collect their PVCs. “While we remain a non- partisan organization, we are resolutely committed to establishing the building blocks of a better Nigeria where there shall be political stability, financial prosperity, economic growth and development as well as value driven services in all sectors of national life, especially the health sector where we remain very dominant players”, he added. Daily Times recalls that JOHESU had issued an ultimatum to the federal government on January 16 which ended on January 31. The demands put forward by the JOHESU, according to Biobelemoye, include unjustified withholding of the salaries of its members for the months of April and May, 2018; upward adjustment of CONHESS salary structure; headship of hospital departments, implementation of consultancy cadre to their members and punitive actions against their members in Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Owerri and Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH).