JOHESU strike: NMA wants hospitals secured

The Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has called on managements of the hospitals in the country to provide security for its members providing skeletal services.

The Secretary of the association in Zamfara, Dr. Munir Tsafe, made the appeal in an interview with our reporter in Gusau on Tuesday.

Tsafe urged the managements to ensure that striking members of JOHESU do not prevent medical doctors from offering normal healthcare services to Nigerians.

He called on the management of Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Gusau to live up to its task of providing an enabling environment for doctors to perform their duties.

The scribe expressed regrets that JOHESU officials had been allowed to distract the services of other personnel in the hospital.

He therefore urged the hospital management to provide adequate security in order to ensure services were rendered to patients especially those on emergency.

He also advised JOHESU members to conduct themselves lawfully as NMA was not against their rights.

However, the Chairman, JOHESU, FMC Gusau branch, Mr Isa Bala, dismissed the allegation as a deliberate propaganda to smear the image of the union by NMA.

Bala explained that the presence of JOHESU officials in hospitals was to enforce total compliance with the strike directives.

He said: “We are still on strike and treat whatsoever would stop us for fighting our right.’’

Recall that JOHESU embarked on the nationwide strike on April 18.
The union later directed its members working with state owned hospitals to join the strike on solidarity three weeks after the commencement of industrial action.

But state owned healthcare facilities in Zamfara have remained in full operation in defiance of the national secretariat order.