Primary Health Care Workers across the 21 local governments of Kogi State have threatened to down tools if their demands for improved salaries are not met by the State Government.
The State Secretary, Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, Comrade Rose Momoh, disclosed this in a statement issued to journalists on Saturday.
She noted that the primary health workers in the Local Government have been collecting 30 to 35 per cent salaries for the past two years.
Momoh added that the health workers had the worst recently when they were paid 25 per cent of their January salary in 2022.
“The salary the Kogi State Government is paying to our health workers at the Local Government level cannot take care of their transport from home to workplace, not to talk of putting food on the table for the family to survive.
“We can no longer bear this continuous hardship we are facing. Health workers risk their lives every day to save others, yet, their salary is nothing to write home about. Who have we offended? Is this what is obtainable in other states?”
“Our demand is that government should complete the process of Primary Health Care under one roof and move the PHC workers and their salaries to State Primary Health Care Development Agency immediately. We are also demanding that primary health care workers be paid 100 per cent like their State counterparts,” the statement added.
The union body, therefore, appealed to the State Government and health partners in the state to come to their aid as they continued to lose their members on daily basis due to the hardship the percentage salaries had posed on them.