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Protesting Zamfara Health Workers Threaten To Shut Down Hospitals

The union stated that they have accosted the appropriate government agencies over the issue but nothing has been done.


A photo showing the map of Zamfara, a state in North-West Nigeria.

 

The Joint Health Sector Unions, Yariman Bakura Specialist Hospital, Gusau chapter has staged a peaceful protest in the hospital over nonpayment of salaries.

The joint unions have issued a one-week ultimatum to the Zamfara State Government to pay their member’s salaries arrears and resolve the half salaries paid to some of them or else they will shut down the hospital and withdraw their services.

The union stated that they have accosted the appropriate government agencies over the issue but nothing has been done despite several assurances which have been given to them that something would be done.

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The chairman of the union, who pleaded not to mention his name for fear of being attacked, said the failure of the relevant authorities to act on their demands within the 24 hours ultimatum earlier issued compelled them to stage the peaceful protest to pass the message across.

“We gave an ultimatum of 24 hours for this earlier but after this, we will give an ultimatum of one week, if nothing happens, we will close the hospital completely,” he said.

The union expressed dismay that they were expecting to receive the increase in salaries as the state government promised to commence the implementation of the N30,000 national minimum wage on November 2022.

He said, “we were brainwashed that in the month of November, we will expect to have what to call minimum wage and that minimum wage, we expect to have salary increment but as of November ending when our salaries came, we realized that it was even cut, not normal wage we used to collect; even the increment was not there.”

“As I am talking here, most of our staff you see here did not collect November and December salaries; we still have those that collect half of November and December salaries, some got November salaries but no December salary,” he said.

The Zamfara State Government announced that it would start the implementation of the N30,000 national minimum wage in November 2022 but there are complaints from some quarters that the state government owes some workers November and December 2022 salaries.