Striking medical workers in Rivers State have demanded Memorandum of Understanding from government as condition to call off their strike.
The striking workers came to this decision at an emergency meeting of the body recently in Port Harcourt regretting that the government has taken them for granted for long.
Speaking to this weekly, the chairperson of the group, Mrs. Beatrice Itubo said the leadership of the workers held meeting with the governor of the state on Monday July 1, 2013, where the governor asked them go back to work while negotiation continues.
Mrs. Itubo explained that as messengers, they told the governor to wait for them to take the report to the congress.
Speaking on the said demonstration by pregnant women to Braithwaite Memorial Specialists Hospital (BMSH) calling on medical workers to resume work, Mrs. Itubo said they felt their pains, explaining that this is why they don’t rush to embark on strike because their sector is very sensitive and that is why they exhaust all avenues for settlement before finally embarking on strike.
She used the medium to call on the general public, the pregnant women and highly placed individuals to press on the government, assembly members and commissioners to come to the plight of the medical workers, assuring that once they settle they will resume work, adding that they swore to deliver service to the best of their ability.
You would recall that the Health workers demanded that their salaries cut since November 2012 be restored to them even through arrears payment. That, doctors retire at salary grade level 17 and go home with full benefit.
An inside source said that the negotiation of Monday July 1, 2013 failed because the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Sampson Parker who was doing the negotiation on behalf of the state governor could not give solution to any of the workers demands, but was only shouting on the workers to go back to work.
The medical laboratory scientists who seems to cry most in the strike said they are not represented in the Primary Health Management Board, they demanded that this should be rectified immediately. ###
Mene Gbarabe
