FG pays N9bn for health workers’ life insurance

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, says the Federal Government has paid N9 billion as premium for Group Life Insurance to all health workers.

Speaking in Abuja Sunday at a joint briefing with the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige and the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, he said this was in addition to the N4,642,485,146.00 released as Special Hazard Allowance for  55,031 health workers in 35 COVID-19 designated hospitals and medical centres.

• Nigerian doctors suspend nationwide strike
• Doctors’ strike: FG releases N4.5bn to hospitals as patients groan

“The payment of COVID-19 Special Hazard Inducement allowances are based on 4 templates: 50 percent of Consolidated Basic Salary to all workers in COVID-19 designated hospitals and centres; 40 percent of Consolidated Basic Salary to health workers in non-COVID-19 designated centres and hospitals; 10 percent of Consolidated Basic Salary to non-health professionals engaged in those centres; 20 percent of Consolidated Basic Salary special allowance to all health workers directly managing COVID-19 patients in treatment and isolation Centres,” Mohammed added.

He also said the government had procured as much personal protective equipment as possible and supplied same to all state and federal tertiary hospitals; while funds for same had been provided in the revised 2020 budget.

“We now have a stockpile (of PPE) for emergency situation,” he stressed.

Mohammed noted all the demands by the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) had been met before the association suspended its indefinite strike yesterday.

Earlier in a communique issued at the end of its virtual Extra-Ordinary National Executive Council meeting, the resident doctors resolved to suspend the strike to give the federal and state government time to fulfil the outstanding demands following an appeal by the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum and other stakeholders.

The association said most state governments were yet to review health workers’ hazard allowance even as Nigeria continued to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

It noted COVID-19 inducement allowance had only been paid to 11 federal health institutions.

It acknowledged the provision of PPE to some hospitals, but said that “these PPEs are consumables and non-reusable, therefore, the need for sustained supply.”

It also acknowledged that the medical residency training funding had been included in the revised 2020 national budget through the intervention of the speaker of the House of Representatives.”

Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has commended the NARD for suspending the strike.

Gbajabiamila, in a statement yesterday by his spokesman, Lanre Lasisi, appreciated their decision following his interventions and those of others.He said the resident doctors had once again proven that they had Nigerians and Nigeria at heart.