Health Workers are under-paid- UCH CMD
Akinlabi Afolabi, Ibadan
The Chief Medical Doctor, University College Hospital, Prof. Jesse Abiodun Otegbayo has disclosed that the health workers in country are unpaid as only God can reward them for their work but he is rest assured that the government is trying all the possible best to make live easy.
Otegbayo made this known while addressing the Biomedical Laboratory Scientists celebrating The International Biomedical Laboratory Science Day organized by the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria, held at Medical Laboratory Science Education Unit, University College Hospital, Ibadan.
“Talking about under payment of health workers, I was saying the no amount given to health workers for the work is enough as only God Almighty can reward health workers apart from what their employee will offer them. Obviously, this is what is happening in all development countries where health workers are paid adequately and I know the government is doing everything to scale up.
In development countries by comparison, they are better paid but these are issues that has to do with underdevelopment and I am sure the government is going to listen to the agitation of the health workers and ensure they provide for the needs of health workers.”
The Biomedical Laboratory Science Day which we celebrate today was established by the International Federation of Biomedical Laboratory Science, IFBLS in 1996 at the IFBLS World Congress in Oslo, Norway with the purpose of promoting and celebrating the important role of Biomedical Laboratory Scientists in diagnostic, treatment, research, quality development and assurance, disease surveillance and preventive health care systems.
Speaking at the event, MLS Idown Akinbola, the Chairman, Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria, Oyo state chapter applauded the Oyo State Government on how it dealt with the issue of Covid 19 in the state as the state is currently experiencing a reduce figure of covid19 victims.
Akinbola also spoke on the challenges faced by Health workers and how government can be of help to them.
“We are the frontier in the fight against covid19, we collect samples from a suspected victims to determine whether they are infected with the virus and we also go ahead to lab to do some analysis on the sample. We are so much involved in the management of Covid 19 patients but we must give kudos to Oyo state in the fight against the virus
” Yes we have challenges as we have laboratory lab that are not well equipped in terms of modern day facilities. The world is advancing on a daily basis and we need sophisticated equipment to work with to be able to do well in health sector. We are urging the State Government to improve our laboratory labs to an international lab.”
Adetunji Adewale, Chairman, AMLSN UCH Chapter said the celebration gives the profession a day to promote and celebrate themselves as a professional.
He added that the theme for this year “Testing Times – Biomedical Laboratory Scientist’s Role in the COVID-19 pandemic” was carefully chosen by IFBLS Board of Directors to meet the global health challenges especially in this period of global pandemic which has affected the world economies.
“This emphasizes that the role of Medical Laboratory Scientist in health care delivery. The sub-themes “Sample Collection in COVID-19 Testing: Challenges and Safety” and “Limitations in Laboratory Diagnosis of Covid-19 were also selected by this chapter to complement the main theme. It is our believe that speakers for today’s celebration will do justice to these chosen topics.”
