The claim by the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, on whether frontline health workers in the fight against Covid-19 are being paid hazard allowance or not has attracted the anger of health workers in Nigeria.
It can be recalled that, at a recent meeting with the Speaker of House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, the Health Minister said that the frontline health workers in the fight against Covid-19 were just doing their ‘standard job’, and was not aware whether they are being paid hazard allowance or not.
The National President, Nigeria Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP), Dr. Ogbonna Obinna, has described the minister’s response as ‘unfortunate and disheartening.’
He further described the Minister’s statement as a recipe for industrial crisis.
In a statement in Abuja, Friday, Dr. Obinna lamented that the health minister, “who ought to defend hazard allowance for health workers that have placed their lives and that of their families in harm’s way since the epidemic of Lassa fever through the pandemic of COVID-19, claims ignorant of the need to enhance the hazard allowance of health workers.
“As at today, Nigeria has recorded 188 deaths from Lassa fever, yet the Minister claimed that he is unaware that health workers’ hazard allowance is N5,000.
“This is most unfortunate and a potent recipe for industrial unrest in the health sector.”
The NUAHP President, however, called on the federal government to implement “without fail all the various incentives as announced by the finance minister on April 5, 2020.”
