NULGE Wants Primary Healthcare Board Scrapped

The Rivers State House
of Assembly has been urged to repeal the primary Health-care Law that set up the Primary Healthcare Board, with a view to scraping the board, which has been severally accused of not serving the interest of health workers in the state.
The Healthcare board has also been described as “a hangman’ that is strangulating the Local Government system in the state.
Speaking during a courtesy calls on the Executive Chairman of Ogba / Egbema /Ndoni Local Government Area, Hon Dr Austin Ahiamadu in his office at Omoku; Care-taker chairman of Asari-Toru Local Government, Hon Daokorite Allwell- George in Buguma and his Degema Local Government counterpart in Degema, as part of his state-wide tour of Local Government Councils, the state president of the Nigeria Union  of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Barr. Franklin Ajinwo said the Board was inimical to the entire local government system.
Ajinwo said health workers were averse to the continued existence of the Board, so “we must all support the health workers who say that the board should go. That board must go. The Health care Board is like a hangman to the Local Government system.
Ajinwo frowned at the composition of the Board, which he said is made up of doctors from the secondary health-care level, rather than the primary health –care level which is the Local Government stressing that the doctors from the state know nothing about the operations of the primary health workers so do not represent their interest.
He explained to the Council chairmen why they embarked on a 3-day warning strike recently and attributed the decision to deduct council allocations at source which triggered the strike to the “scheming by some persons who are interested in Local Government allocations and appealed to the chairmen not to sign the document on deduction of local government allocations at source.
Responding, the chairman of ONELGA, Hon Dr Ahiamadu advised the leadership of NULGE to meet the relevant authorities to resolve the matter amicably .
Ajinwo later led the NULGE state officials to interface with the councils workers on their welfare and appealed to their various management to attend to the issues raised by the workers such as transfer allowance, minimum wage arrears, pending promotions and death benefits. He also thanked the managements for the cordial relationship between them and the workers.

Justus Unye-Awaji

State Director, National Orientation Agency, Mr Oliver Wolugbom (left) conferring with Sole Administrator, Rivers State Waste Management Agency, Mr Ade Adeogun during a roundtable organised by NOA in Port Harcourt, yesterday. Photo: Prince Obinna Dele.