UITH Workers Embark On Sit-down Strike Over Plan To Privatise Services | WakaWaka Reporters
UITH

UITH Workers Embark On Sit-down Strike Over Plan To Privatise Services

Members of Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP) University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) branch have condemned alleged plans by the management of the hospital to privatise and commercialise the diagnostic section of the hospital.

The union yesterday declared a-three day sit-down strike to force management to retrace its steps.

Some of the placards carried by NUAHP members read: ‘Don’t add to the suffering of the masses. We say no to privatisation,’ ‘we are against privatisation. Labour is against privatization,’ ‘privatization is tantamount to mismanagement of public health,’ ‘start commercialisation from the theatre not from diagnostic and radiology.’

The union’s chairman, Comrade Olatunde Oluwawumi, said members would be in the office without attending to any patient.

He added that : “Despite all persuasion, the UITH management is bent on toeing this path of commercialisation and privatisation of a section of the diagnostic department of our organisation without considering the consequences. We are concerned as professional union; we are concerned as bona fide staff of UITH; we are concerned as members of Ilorin community.

“We wonder, we brainstorm on what benefits this ill-advised move of the management of UILTH will bring to the innocent people of Kwara State and environs. The truth is management has been deliberately killing the radiology department especially the unit belonging to the images scientists for private to thrive because of their own selfish reasons by their refusal to respond to several memos written to the management.