Ogun State Nurses Launch Protest

Nurses under the umbrella of the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, NANNM, have protested against the management of the Federal Medical Centre, Idi Aba, Abeokuta, Ogun State, over what they call terrible working conditions.

The health workers, during their protest on Wednesday, said their members collapsed on duties over work overload and due to an unconducive work environment.

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The nurses protested against a shortage of manpower and an alleged exclusion from the 2023 promotion carried out in the institution.

They demanded during their nonviolent march through the hospital grounds that harsher measures will be implemented should their numerous grievances remain unresolved.

Singing songs of unity, the irate employees held signs with various slogans on them, including “Stop Selective Promotion,” “Nurses Workload is Enough for Promotion,” and “Nurses’ Lives Matter.”

Michael Nnachi, the National President of NANNM, recently bemoaned the loss of over 75,000 members to the outside world as a result of low pay and an unsanitary working environment in the nation.

Olufimilola Adekunle, the chairman of the FMC Abeokuta branch of NANNM, spoke on behalf of the demonstrators when he stated that more than 200 hospital nurses had left the country.

Less than 300 nurses remain at the facility to care for the hundreds of patients who come in every day, the speaker continued.

Adekunle bemoaned the fact that the hospital is severely short-staffed, leaving the nurses overworked and fatigued.

“It is really difficult to live; we had to jointly collapse three units. After this protest, we are going to quickly merge several wards together because we can no longer stand it.

“We need the government to help us since we are laboring and should be compensated for our efforts. Our rights ought to be granted to us in full. We’re going to down tools next. Because we have witnessed our nurses collapse over the past few months, we are going to write them off and cease operations.

“We lost two nurses in the last two months.” Our existence matters. Our nurses’ collapses while on duty and the deaths were both caused by the workload. We don’t gain anything from the management; this promotion is the only thing we appreciate,” the woman remarked.

In response to the demonstration, the hospital’s head of clinical services, Dr. Kunle Adediran, stated that the management was not involved in the promotion problem. He added that the Federal Ministry of Health’s policies govern nurse promotions.

But he did guarantee that the hospital would update the federal government on its progress in a letter.

Since we are all Federal Government employees, whatever we do must adhere to the government’s directives.” The management is not solely responsible for that, he stated.

Credit: Dailypost