Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
In an effort to ensure strict compliance with the ongoing Joint Health Workers Union (JOHESU) strike, in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, officials of the union, on Thursday, went round government hospitals in the metropolis to ensure that none of their members were seen attending to patients.
Daily Sun observed that the union officials caused a stir at the main entrance of the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) located along Atiku Abubakar Road as they struggled frantically to prevent their members from reporting to work.
Speaking with newsmen at the scene, Chairman, Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, (Benue State chapter), Comrade Dennis Nyam, said the Union would not relent in ensuring that its members complied with the strike until their demands were met.
He said the leadership of the Union was on a monitoring exercise in all the hospitals to enforce compliance and was determined to ensure 100 percent compliance with the strike.
Commenting on the development, Head of Clinical Services, FMC, Dr Paulinus Abu, who decried JOHESU’s insistence to continue with the strike despite all entreaties stated that the hospital management was working with the police to ensure maintenance of law and order within the hospital.
He regretted that despite all entreaties, the JOHESU members in the state, still remained adamant and were recalcitrant to their pleas.
Abu maintained that because of the strategic location of the hospital, the strike needed to be handled with utmost maturity to prevent miscreants from taking advantage of it to wreck havoc on the community.
A relation to one of the patients at the hospital who simply gave her name as Madam Alice begged the striking health workers and the federal government to quickly resolve the grey issues between them so that patients don’t die as a result of the strike.