JOHESU/AHPS demands waiver policy on electricity bills
By Doris Obinna
The Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) and Assembly of Healthcare Professional Associations (AHPS) has demanded a waiver policy in the payment of electricity bills to cover Federal Health Institutions (FHIs), research institutes, and citadels of learning in Nigeria.
The health sector unions, in a letter to President Bola Tinubu, jointly signed by the national chairman, Dr. Kabiru Ado Minjibir, and national secretary, Martin Egbanubi, stated that it was with a sense of responsibility that it called for a waiver policy, especially in the health institutions.
In a letter titled “Addressing the power needs of the FHIs, research institutes and citadels of learning in Nigeria,” addressed to the President through the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Ali Pate, they proposed that the waiver might be through subsidy gaps approved by the Federal Government or a similar benefit package in the ultimate public interest riding on the fact that health and education were social services, which must be prioritized by government.
It explained that JOHESU and AHPS were the umbrella template of four major health sector unions, including Medical & Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), Senior Staff Association of Universities, Teaching Hospital research institutions and associated institutions (SSAUTHRIAL), Nigeria Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Education and Associated Institutions (NASU).
The statement further read: “Over time we have positioned our thriving organisation as one in the forefront of agitations for the betterment of the value of consumers of health.
Recent experience of the FHIs, ivory towers and research institutes, which have been disconnected by the DISCOS in various locations in the country because of their inability to pay electricity bills in their various facilities have assumed a most worrisome dimension.
“It is the reality and norm that hospitals, which stock drugs and other radiopharmaceuticals, laboratory reagents, consumables, mortuary facilities, require constant power supply to maintain the potency of these highly sensitive health commodities.
“Consumers who access healthcare definitely need power supply for the wide range of surgical and diagnostic services, including x-ray, CT scans and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to sustain essential services.
“The scenarios highlighted above are similar to expectations in research institutes, especially in the health sector, which must power their plethora of laboratory facilities, which indulge in drug formulations and discovery, research into clinical disease states, food production, quality control and assurance as well as a wide range of other detailed research.
“It is the same experience in our universities and other higher institutions that are hamstrung with power challenges at a time research efforts are supposed to be geared towards national developments, growth, reintegration and consolidation in the few areas we ever got it right.
“This is apart from the fact that all the FHIs towers and research institutes have students directly affiliated to them.”
