Nurses begin indefinite strike

Nurses and Midwives at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, on Friday began an indefinite strike to press home their demands.

The nurses and midwives under the aegis of the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) are protesting what they called stagnation, non-payment of salary and inadequate facilities.

Mr Olurotimi Awojide, the State Chairman of NANNM, told newsmen in Lagos that the association had given the management a seven-day ultimatum which expired on June 9.

Other demands are outstanding 2015 promotion results of 71 nurses, non-payment of nurses employed in 2015, lack of consumables, inadequate manpower and irregular water and power supply.

"We have been having series of problems with LUTH management for a while now which we have made effort to resolve but all to no avail.

"We have written several letters to them on pressing issues, they are not responding and that is why we are taking this action.

"For quite some time now, nurses work at night without light, leaving them with no choice of using torchlight and phones to attend to patients.

"This is a teaching hospital and infection control should be our priority and when there are no consumables, water, people improvise to attend to patients,’’ he said.

The Chairman of NANNM, LUTH chapter, Mrs Oluyemisi Adelaja, said inadequate equipment had affected the nurses’ care for patients in the hospital.

Adelaja said the strike was meant to call on the management and the Federal Ministry of Health to apply the same measures in LUTH as being done in other 52 federal health institutions.

"We want them to do the needful by giving our members their promotion as and when due and applying the same measures being applied to other health institutions to us.

"Because we are under the same Federal Ministry of Health and the same equity and justice should be extended to LUTH nurses.’’

Contacted, the Public Relations Officer of LUTH, Mr Kelechi Otuneme, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the management had not reacted yet on the development.

NAN also reports that few nurses were seen attending to some patients, while others joined the protest.