On Wednesday, nurses at the Federal Medical Centre in Idi-Aba, Abeokuta, Ogun State, demonstrated over their purported exclusion from the institution’s 2023 promotion process.
The nurses, who are affiliated with the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, also voiced their dissatisfaction with the hospital’s management, requesting that their rights about staff shortages, promotion arrears, and other matters be addressed. They also described their working conditions as severe.
Wednesday’s demonstration, which PUNCH Healthwise was watching, took place on the hospital’s grounds.
The irate employees were observed peacefully singing and holding signs across the property.
Some of the placards read: “Stop selective promotion”; “Nurses workload is enough for promotion”; “Nurses’ lives matter”; “Give us our promotion”; “Healthy workplace, healing spaces, nurses demand both”; “Improve nurses’ working environment”.
Speaking with our correspondent, Olufimilola Adekunle, the chairman of the FMC Abeokuta branch of NANNM, explained that the purpose of the demonstration was to obtain the promotional examination papers, which the hospital claimed the nurses had failed.
Adekunle bemoaned the fact that the hospital is severely short-staffed, leaving many of its nurses overworked and fatigued.
“We are tired, we are really tired. Before we used to do three shifts but because of the shortage, we have to collapse it to two shifts.
“We have written to the management several times for remuneration for this long hours work we are doing but no response.
“The only thing we enjoyed from this management is this promotion and now our members were not beneficiaries. They said we failed, we want to see the script,” she insisted.
Reacting to the protest, Head of Clinical Services of the hospital, Dr Kunle Adediran, told our correspondent that the issue regarding the promotion was beyond the management because the decision was taken by the Federal Ministry of Health.
He, however, promised that the hospital would write to the Federal Government to review some of the decisions and also address other issues raised by the nurses.
