Federal Government Neglects us, Covid-19 Volunteers at LUTH Isolation Centre in Lagos Cry Out


Lagos, Nigeria
Hassan Nurudeen

Nephrology Nurse Sekinah Folake Jimoh, one of Covid-19 volunteers at Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH isolation centre stated that they have been totally neglected by the Federal Government.

She said: 
“To cushion the psychology effect of being a volunteer, the frontline health workers abroad are given allowances to boost their morale. But here, it is a pathetic case. The state has been doing fine while it’s a disheartening case at the federal level.”
Also, Nurse Ikemba Janet, another volunteer at LUTH corroborated the allegation. She said: 
“the government at Federal Level promised to take care of us before we agreed to volunteer.  However, the current situation is that we are totally neglected while they tell the media different stories”.
The Federal Ministry of Health did not respond to the story when queried via their official email but the special assistant to the Minister on media, Mr Gobir Muhammad spoke to our correspondent on phone. When asked why the Ministry has not paid the volunteers’ allowances as at when due, he said: 
“the story is not totally correct. We have paid allowances of the first two months to all our volunteers across the country but we only owe them the last two. The Ministry is working assiduously with the office of the Accountant General of the Federation to pay the backlog. Everything is in control”.
The health workers do not however deter in discharging their duties to the infected. They are motivated to save lives and protect their communities. Nephrology Nurse Sekinat explained the secrets behind her motivation: 
“In a nutshell, you must give back to the society. My religious learning also gave me the motivation to do volunteer apart from the money”.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In the Forefront of Lagos Combat with Corona Virus Account of a Nephrology Nurse in the front line of Covid-19 response in Lagos.

Image
Nephrology Nurse, Sekinah Jimoh   Just like other parts of the world, Lagos residents were caught unawares with Covid-19 pandemic outbreaks. That was never anticipated in the beginning of year 2020. Ever since the first case was reported on 27 th of February 2020, the number of infected people has been on the rise. As a result, Lagos has become the epicenter of the virus in Nigeria. With almost non-existence of healthcare structure in the country and low wage of her health workers, there was no enough motivation for medical practitioners to volunteer to help combat the novel virus. Nephrology Nurse Sekinah Folake Jimoh who works at Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, is however one of the few health workers motivated to serve their people regardless of the awkward conditions in the health sector. Expressing her motivation, she said: “I’m motivated to give back to the society where I grew up. Also, my religious belief encouraged me to lend helping hands wh...
Read more

Sheik Gumi: Lion of the Desert

Image
Every nooks and crannies of Nigeria's Northern part was held to a stand-still. Everyone was in great fear to discuss the terror insurgence on the part of the country though; it was disheartening. Therefore, the weak turned to the high-ups to serve as their megaphone to the concerned authorities but their pleas fell on deaf ears. Expectantly, indiscriminate bombing and killing of innocent souls escalated that it was unbearable anymore. Boko haram (either political or criminal) brought the populace to their knees and the central government was left shading the shadows of their unreasonable conditions for seizing fires. All these are coined around one of the two recognized religions in Nigeria; Islam. The sect claimed to wage jihad on their enemies and that of the religion. This posed a greatest challenge to the Muslim community since the religion was on the line. There appeared a fearless cleric, hater of injustice, promoter of religious equality, lion of the desert, Sheik Ahmad...
Read more