Your protest is in bad faith, Civic group tells General Hospital nurses
Says protest 24 hours after demands untidy
Kwara Forum for Ethics and Good Governance, on Thursday, April 9 condemned the protest by some nurses and midwives at the General Hospital Ilorin over alleged lack of personal protective equipment and demand for some emergency allowances from the hospital management.
“We saw the video like every other persons and had some sympathy for the workers. But a deeper look into the agitations of the nurses and a few questions thrown at their leaders in the background expose fundamental flaws in their approach and action which seems an attempt to either embarrass their management or maybe the state government,” Usman Abdullah, executive secretary of the group, said in a statement late yesterday.
“First, we understand that the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, GHI Chapter, wrote a letter dated 08/04/2020 with reference No. 0011 in which they made four requests including provision of PPEs for all nurses working in the hospital; provision of call food for all nurses on duty; extension of designated pick up point for its members; and weekly allowance for all nurses throughout the period of the pandemic.
“As good as these demands are and whatever their relationship with the management of the hospital, it is strange that the nurses will be throwing tantrums in the name of protest barely 24 hours after making some demands. That is too early to raise suspicion. We agree that the government should try make health workers very comfortable. However, no government in the world prepares for this humanitarian crisis of COVID-19 and the worst anybody can do is to take advantage of the situation to hold governments to ransom.
“For goodness sake, we are not talking about long-standing allowance being owed them. It is something you have just asked for 24 hours earlier. As for PPEs, we gathered reliably that 60 PPEs were provided for the hospital alone by the COVID-19 committee. While more can be given, are we saying all these nurses are all working in A/E at the same time where they might have encounter with possible COVID-19 patients and must wear PPEs? We learnt that the hospital also got goggles, antiseptic, face masks, hand sanitisers, hazmat suits, surgical masks and buckets.”
Abdullah said the video of the protest now being circulated by known PDP members suggested that the workers were being used politically to either embarrass their management or the government, something he warned might backfire on the workers.
“We contend that this is not the time to score any cheap point. We are in this together. PPEs are never enough at this time anywhere in the world. Health workers earn far more than other categories of workers. The reason for that is because of the essential nature of their job. So, it is expected that they will show more maturity at this time, not insisting on getting allowance or leave the work. That was a blackmail and unpatriotic arm twisting of the system. For us, the protest on Thursday was in bad taste and should be condemned by everyone,” he said.
“This is not the time to cause needless distractions. It is time for all of us to understand that no one is safe until we are all safe,” he stated.
