Months after the scale 3.0 covid-19 vaccination program ended, health workers in Ondo state are yet to get their allowances.
A health worker, Rosalind Yewande Ajadi who is a community health assistant at the primary health center in Agbaluku Akoko, one of the suburbs of Akoko North West LG area of Ondo State narrates her ordeal.
For 10 years Miss Yewande said she did almost everything that would make her qualify as a health personnel, spending millions to get a certificate.
Since 2018 when she started working under the Npower program, her monthly earnings are yet to reach the 30 000 naira minimum wage mark. In spite of that, she and her team constantly go into the 12 communities attached to the facility with the covid vaccination message but it is difficult sometimes.
Most Nigerians may have forgotten the dreadful moments covid brought about the 3,155 deaths recorded during the pandemic.
With states like Ondo still lagging behind on the vaccination table, the health system is threatened particularly for children under 5 and pregnant women.
Miss Yewande resumes work every day with the hope that things will get better while hope is thinning out, no word of a possible salary increase.
At another primary health centre in IMO-Arigidi Akoko, the situation at the facility presents its own challenges, shortage of Staff, insecurity and fear of the unknown stop the health workers from running the night shift.
As frontline survivors during the covid-19 pandemic, these health workers are still fighting worse viruses and trying to survive with little money in their pockets.
