Dr Babatunde Adebola Aiyelabola

Babatunde Adebola Aiyelabola, also known as Baba Aye, is the Public Services International’s policy officer responsible for the health and social care sector of the global trade union federation which brings together 30 million workers, half of whom are in the health and social care sector. Baba Aye has always been passionate about healthcare as a fundamental human right, and social justice, from his early teenage years. Inspired by this twin passions, he secured entry with the highest score into the University of Ilorin medical school in Nigeria, in 1988 and promptly got involved in the students’ union and anti-military dictatorship movement in the country at the time, becoming a pro-democracy leader as a student. As the PSI health and social care policy officer, Baba took the necessary step to request the granting of official relations to PSI by the World Health Organization. This was long overdue, considering the central role PSI which was formed in 1907 plays as the voice of 14.5 million health and care workers (out of a total number of 30 million public sector workers it represents). The 142nd session of the WHO Executive Board welcomed PSI into official relations as a non-state actor in January 2018. This makes PSI the first and only trade union body of health workers to enjoy such relations with the WHO and bring the voice of unionized health and care workers to the discourse and policy process within the WHO. In this light Baba has served on a few guideline developments groups of the WHO. He also represents trade unions in an observer status on the OECD health committee, leading the Trade Union Advisory Committee delegations to the body. And he has been a member of the secretariat, representing the Workers group on several ILO tripartite meetings on the health sector and disaster management.