Clinical services have been paralysed across major public health facilities in Kano as a nationwide industrial action embarked upon by the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives entered its second day.
The mother body of the Union declared a seven-day warning strike nationwide to press home the improvement of the welfare of members and other pending demands bordering on improving the working conditions of nurses.
However, the warning strike has already taken its toll on innocent patients who are now at the receiving end of the differences between the nurses and the government.
The situation is worsening at Muhammadu Buhari Paediatrics General Hospital, Zoo Road, where the hospital management has shut down the power supply ostensibly to force inpatients out of the facility.
Abdulrahman Muhammed, relative of a patient at the Pediatric hospital, narrated how his in-law, a first-time mother who delivered a premature baby, was forced to vacate the facility, a day after she had a caesarean section.
“It was madness, and I couldn’t believe people could be this heartless. A first-time mother, my brother’s wife, who gave birth via C-section just yesterday to a premature baby, asked to leave the hospital because of the nurses’ strike.
“They they don’t even care what happened to the baby. We were simply asked to leave. We have other cases that are even worse than ours. After asking us to leave, the next thing we saw was a power outage. They shut down everything that could supply electricity,” Muhammed told The Guardian.
The situation is not different at Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital and Muhammadu Abdullahi Wase Teaching Hospital, both state-owned tertiary facilities, as patients are seen stranded.
Although skeletal services were seen being rendered at the Accident and Emergency Unit and Intensive Care Unit, the presence of health technicians is further evidence.
At National Orthopaedic Hospital, Dala and Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, nurses fully adhered to the warning strike directive, with few patients and relatives seen loitering around the wards.
Reacting to the ugly situation, Kano State Chairman of the Nigerian Nurses and Midwifery, Comrade Ibrahim Maikarfi, said the union has achieved 90 per cent compliance across the state. He pledged that nurses currently managing patients with critical conditions will soon be compelled to join the industrial action.
According to Maikarfi, the government has abandoned the nurses’ welfare, leaving their well-being deteriorated for several years. Although the state chairman revealed that part of the nurses’ agitation was to improve the condition of the healthcare system, he insisted that members nationwide have been neglected for too long.
Part of their demand, Maikarfi noted, includes the Scheme of Service for Nurses, which has not been implemented in the last 12 years, a lack of centralisation of internship training for nurses and non-payment of pending allowances.
He was also concerned about the dwindling nurse capacity, which is currently creating a significant shortage of nurses and, unfortunately, overstretching the capacity of the few remaining nurses. He said that despite the availability of qualified nurses, the government has refused to recruit more nurses to reduce the excessive burnout among members.
