{"id":68756,"date":"2025-06-23T05:04:03","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T05:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=68756"},"modified":"2025-06-23T05:04:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T05:04:03","slug":"fct-residents-lament-inaccessible-healthcare-urge-end-to-workers-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/23\/fct-residents-lament-inaccessible-healthcare-urge-end-to-workers-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"FCT Residents Lament Inaccessible Healthcare, Urge End to Workers\u2019 Strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Adewunmi Oluwaseun\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Residents of Bwari Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), have raised alarm over the prolonged inaccessibility of primary healthcare services due to an ongoing strike by council workers.<\/p>\n<p>The strike, now in its third month, has left communities struggling to access basic health services, with many calling on the FCT Administration and council authorities to intervene immediately.<\/p>\n<p>The industrial action began in March, following a directive from the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), and the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), demanding the implementation of the \u20a670,000 minimum wage and other entitlements.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, primary healthcare centres and schools across the six area councils have remained shut, severely disrupting access to essential services.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy two children have been sick for over two weeks. Normally, I\u2019d take them to the local health centre, but it\u2019s closed due to the strike,\u201d lamented Mrs. Liyatu Adamu, a resident. \u201cWe can&#8217;t afford private hospitals, and even Over-the-Counter drugs are expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, civil servant Mr. Luka Ango described the impact as devastating. \u201cEssential services like antenatal care, immunisation, and deliveries have all stopped. The government must act before this leads to increased mortality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mrs. Ruth Aboyi, a local teacher, added that patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension are at serious risk.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf this continues, we may witness preventable deaths and disease outbreaks,\u201d she warned, noting that nearby secondary hospitals are already overwhelmed.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on the development, NULGE Chairman in Bwari, Mr. Emmanuel Ishaku, told NAN that despite several meetings, no resolution has been reached.<\/p>\n<p>He disclosed that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), FCT Chapter has now taken over the matter and issued a seven-day ultimatum to the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, to resolve the crisis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf nothing is done within the timeframe, we may be forced to picket the Minister\u2019s office,\u201d Ishaku said.<\/p>\n<p>The strike continues to disrupt lives across the FCT, with growing calls for immediate government intervention to restore critical public services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Adewunmi Oluwaseun\u00a0 Residents of Bwari Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), have raised alarm over the prolonged inaccessibility of primary healthcare services due to an ongoing strike by council workers. The strike, now in its third month, has left communities struggling to access basic health services, with many calling on the FCT [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":68757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-68756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuja-reports","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68758,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68756\/revisions\/68758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}