Daily Independent Online.
*
Wednesday, July 21, 2004.
Tinubu asks LUTH workers to shelve strike
•Workers remain adamant
By Lekan Sanni,
Emmanuel Ukudolo
and Onche Odeh,
Lagos
Lagos State Governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu,
has advised the striking Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) workers to
call off their industrial action in the interest of the sick, as he disclosed
that President Olusegun Obasanjo has intervened in the crisis.
Even though the striking Medical and Health
Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN) are expected to meet this morning, the chances
of calling off the five weeks old strike appeared very slim.
Governor Tinubu noted that the LUTH crisis
has brought to the fore, the need for a comprehensive and holistic review of
the problems confronting the nation’s teaching hospitals with a view to
finding lasting solution to them. Tinubu, in his appeal to the workers said
they have already made their point with the more than one month strike, which
he noted has subjected patients and others who required the services of the
institution to untold suffering.
The strike, according to him, has led to
the death of many who could have been alive today, with many yet on danger of
losing their lives, if the situation is not normalised immediately.
Expressing the need to call off the strike,
the governor said President Obasanjo has already intervened by directing that
the workers’ grievance be attended to speedily.
“The workers should please consider
first and foremost, the plight of the sick and dying whose care is the sacred
responsibility of the various professions in the health sector,” he said.
The governor urged the relevant authorities
to see the situation as a national emergency, which must be so attended to,
adding that concrete steps must be taken to address the workers grievances.
He said there was need for a better funding
of the health sector, especially the nation’s teaching hospitals.
According to him, there must be a forum to address issues relating to the
funding and management of the hospitals. Such a forum, he noted, must address
such issues as to how to ensure that government was not left to shoulder the
responsibility of funding the hospitals alone, how to address funding from
international donor agencies, how to decentralise the management of the
hospitals with a view to ensuring greater efficiency and qualitative service
delivery, among others.
Patients languishing in pains at LUTH might
have to wait a little longer in view of the present situation, which suggested
no relief was in sight.
Even though the striking MHWUN would meet
today, the chances of calling off the strike appeared very slim
When Daily Independent visited LUTH, Idi
Araba, Lagos on Tuesday, the situation was quite calm with members of the
security forces waiting to forestall any probable breakdown of law and other.
The wards were deserted but patients, some in terrible situation were seen receiving skeletal services.
Even some of the students that were due to sit for
examinations were said to have been transferred to the Lagos State University
Teaching Hospital, Ikeja.
Some members of MHWUN were spotted very
close to their secretariat. The association’s Secretary General Comrade
Phillips Olu Ogunlowokan told Daily Independent that though the meeting was
arranged to debrief the workers on the outcome of the meeting between the
union’s executive, management of LUTH and the Ministry of Labour and
Productivity, the union he said would not call off the strike since the
government was yet to accede to their request.
According to him, the issue at stake goes
beyond arrears of salary, but has to do with the state of facilities at the
teaching hospital. “The scanning machines are not working. Yesterday, we
went to one of the patients. He has paid N49,000 for the past four months for scan which he has not been able
to do. Services that they would render for N15000 outside, when you come to
LUTH you get the same service at the rate of over N60000 whereas the services
are not there,” he said, adding that what was left in the hospital was
but physical structures.
“If you go to the blood bank, it is the same thing. I
work in the Paediatric Emergency. There is no water, and mothers will resort to
buying pure water to wash napkin and bath outside in the open.”
He said there are no continuation sheets to write on forcing
the workers to use their money in buying stationeries to do their jobs.
He equally accused the management of the hospital of running
the place without any input from the workers and other management and staff. He
alleged that since the commencement of the strike, the management has being
paying N150000 daily to a private
security outfit to maintain law and order within the hospital, adding that it
was because of the development that the union was demanding the removal of the
chief medical director to pave way for a new management that would listen to
the workers.
On the reported calling off of the strike
by the national body, the secretary said Alhaji Mudashiru Ayinde Erena signed
on behalf of the national body, adding that the decision arrived at during the
meeting in Abuja was not binding on the union since members were never
consulted before the communiqué was signed.
According to him, it is only the Central
Working Committee of the local union that has the right to call off any strike.
