THE strike embarked upon by local government areas in Bayelsa State over the non-payment of salary arrears has hampered the medical outreach programme of the United Nations Children’s Fund in the state. In declaring the week-long event open, the Permanent Secretary, Bayelsa State Ministry of Health, Dr. Kojo Omietimi, had said the bi-annual exercise was designed to deliver an integrated package of cost-effective high impact preventive and curative health interventions. The permanent secretary also said that the event was to feature Vitamins A supplementation for children; tests for pregnant women and women of child-bearing age, iron-foliate supplement for pregnant women, de-worming of children, screening for malnutrition, birth registration and HIV counseling and testing. At Basic Health Centre, Tumgbo community in Sagbama Local Government Area of the state, few health officers, who were on ground, lamented the lack of logistics to mobilise staff for the exercise.
The head of the centre, Mrs. Ebi Pateme, said, “Are you not aware that local government workers have not been paid for the past six months? We are coming to work because of the nature of our job? “LG workers in other departments are on strike. Government did not give us any logistics for the MNCHW exercise. All we need now is our salaries so that we can discharge our duties effectively.” An immunization officer in Sagbama LGA, Mr. Barazi David, said the distribution of materials for the exercise started late due to logistics problems. He, however, noted that with logistics support and UNICEF materials were able to get to all 27 health facilities in the area, adding that attendance was encouraging.
“Our major challenge is the problem of logistics, but we really commend UNICEF for providing us with some incentives that contributed to the success of this programme,” David noted. In his remarks, the Head of Department, Health, Sagbama LGA, Mr. Taribidei Tonkiri, attributed the low turn-out recorded during the event to the low morale of workers due to the non-payment of salaries for months.The HOD, who spoke from the headquarters of the council, which was locked by the striking workers, said the exercise did not meet its expectation as a result of logistics bottlenecks. He advised the federal, state and local governments to ensure that all arrears owed LG workers were cleared to boost the morale of workers.
Source:Punch Nigeria
