The Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, MHWUN, in Kogi State has urged Governor Usman Ododo to hire health workers for the state’s numerous hospitals and primary healthcare centers, citing an urgent scarcity of people in the health sector.
The union’s Chairman, Gabriel Amari, made the appeal at its Eight Quadrennial State Delegates Conference, citing a labor deficit across the state’s 21 local governments.
Amari listed some of the medical workers’ demands to the government of Kogi State, saying; “The Kogi State Government should harmonize the health workers salaries as there are lots of disparity in the salaries of the state health workers.
“The Government should set up an implementation committee of the Seventy thousand naira (N70,000) national minimum wage without further delay. In addition, the Kogi State Government should organize training and workshops for our health workers to update their knowledge with the current global practices. Also, there is a need for the domestication of the approved 5 years extension of health workers’ years of service as being endorsed by the council of establishment”.
Amari, who also lamented on the present challenges medical workers are facing in the Country said “This delegate conference comes at a time of great national adversity and precarity. The state of our national economy and how it affects the health sector is of immense apprehension to many of us stakeholders in the industry.
” The high cost of living, insecurity, acute shortage of manpower in our hospitals and primary health care centres informed the choice of the theme which is “towards strengthening trade unions for development”.
