The National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), has appealed to the Federal Government to meet its demands to ensure improvement in healthcare delivery in the country.
The Secretary of the Lagos State Chapter of the association, Mr Oloruntoba Odumosu, made the appeal yesterday in Lagos.
Recall that Nigerian nurses, under the aegis of NANNM, had embarked on a seven-day warning strike on July 30 to press home some demands.
The strike, which followed the expiration of a 15-day ultimatum the association gave to the government, is coming amid a faceoff between doctors and the government over welfare and other issues.
However, Odumosu said the government was to hold a meeting with national leaders of the union on Thursday to dialogue to resolve the issues leading to the warning strike.
He said the outcome of the meeting would guide the association’s next line of action. “Because it is a national issue and a national strike, we are not engaging the Lagos State Government; we can only put pressure on the Federal Government to listen to us.
“These demands have been long overdue; some of them are things that are four decades old,” he said.
Based on the strike hospitals across the Federal Capital Territory were on Wednesday thrown into chaos as nurses under NANNM, the Federal Health Institutions Sector, began a sevenday warning strike, and paralysing care services on Abuja hospitals and it’s environ.
The action, which commenced early Wednesday, forced several government hospitals in Abuja to either discharge patients or drastically scale down operations due to an acute shortage of nursing staff.
The union had earlier, on July 14, issued a 15-day ultimatum to the Federal Government, demanding immediate intervention to avert a total healthcare shutdown.
According to the National Chairman of NANNM-FHI, Morakinyo Rilwan, the Federal Government failed to act within the given timeframe.
“Ordinarily, we should have lost patience a long time ago. This is the first time the association has gone on strike as NANNM in over two decades.
