JOHESU gives Buhari reasons to sack Health Minister

As the rift between members of the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) and the Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewale, lingers the development has now taken a new twist as the Union has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to as a matter of urgency, immediately  sack the Minister for what it described as “unfair treatment” over their plight.

The call came after the Union rose from it’s North-East zonal consultative forum meeting held in Gombe Wednesday during which the National General Secretary of the Allied Health Professionals who is one of the National leaders of JOHESU, Comrade Oluwatoyin Obesesan, accused the Minister of bias in handling issues in the administration of the Ministry.

He opined that the Minister has lost all it takes to head the Ministry of Health, thus, denigrating the position through his unfair actions.

While briefing newsmen on the outcome of the meeting, Comrade Oluwatoyin said that the Minister should be blamed for the refusal of members of JOHESU to return to work even as he reiterated the resolve of the members to continue with the strike action until President Muhammadu Buhari intervened in the matter.

According to him, “the Ministry of Health has placed itself to work against this Government, we are calling for the immediate sack of the Minister of Health because he has shown that he is incompetent in the administration of the Ministry”.

The Union leader also explained that the Ministry and the unions had met severely but that the Government is not responding saying, “the Minister is not responding, he is talking as a Doctor forgetting that he is father to all. What we are asking is simply that the Federal Government should make sure that they implement the agreement they signed with us on 30th September, 2017″.

He however denied the insinuations that they are in rivalry with Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), saying, “there is no rivalry between JOHESU and NMA, our problem is with the Federal Government”.

He further explained that, “the thing is that whatever the NMA says, the Minister comes to the negotiation table and re-echo it, which means, they are together working in tandem to make sure that they block us from getting what we are suppose to get. If the Minister had not been re-echoing what the NMA had been saying, we would not have joined issues with the NMA”.

“The Minister came out openly to say that JOHESU wants to collect what the doctors are collecting. What we want is that the doctors’ salaries be transcribed to our own salary. The Minister has refused to obey over ten court judgments in favour of JOHESU. The Minister is partial”, he further emphasized.

Oluwatoyin also stated that the Minister of Health must not necessarily be a medical Doctor as is the case in many developed countries including the head of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“We said the Ministry must be restructured, it’s not supposed to be the Ministry for doctors alone the way it is now, everything in the ministry is skewed to doctors, this is injustice, other professionals must be reckoned with in the whole scheme”, he declared.

He concluded that, “We are sorry, the Ministry of Health and doctors say we are not important, we are slaves, we are supportive workers, forgetting that we have our own roles in the health system. Now that we are on strike, there is nothing we can do, that is why the President must intervene as a matter of urgency”.