Unpaid Nurses, Fresh Recruitment: BSUTH’s Troubling Contradiction
The recent advertisement by the Benue State University Teaching Hospital (BSUTH) seeking to engage retired and newly qualified midwives has triggered widespread concern, coming at a time when nurses under the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), Benue State chapter, are on an indefinite strike over unpaid salaries and allowances.
At the heart of the industrial action are persistent salary arrears and unpaid entitlements.
Nurses previously engaged by the hospital reportedly worked for two months without remuneration, forcing many to disengage after management cited revenue losses occasioned by the strike.
Against this backdrop, the decision to recruit additional hands appears contradictory and raises serious questions about the hospital’s priorities and sincerity in resolving the crisis.
Rather than addressing the root causes of the strike, the move is widely perceived as an attempt to weaken a legitimate industrial action.
Nurses employed as recently as 2024 are still owed a minimum of three months’ salary, despite repeated appeals and engagements with management.
These unresolved obligations have further eroded trust between healthcare workers and the hospital’s leadership.
Responsibility also rests squarely with the Benue State Government under Governor Hyacinth Alia.
Prolonged salary arrears and sustained official silence signal a troubling lack of political will to protect frontline health workers, even as the state grapples with serious maternal and child health challenges.
Recruiting new staff into a system where existing workers remain unpaid is neither reform nor solution but mere window dressing.
Sustainable healthcare delivery cannot thrive on unpaid labour, suppressed grievances, and cosmetic interventions.
Until outstanding salaries are cleared and genuine dialogue is restored, such actions will only deepen the crisis and weaken Benue State’s already strained health sector.
“For too long, health workers have endured in silence, repeatedly saying “Yes, Father.” Perhaps the time has come to ask the harder, more necessary question: “Why, Father?”
