Medical and administrative activities were on Tuesday, for over three hours paralyzed at the Abia State University Teaching Hospital (ABSUTH), Aba as staffers of the state government establishment protest non-payment of 10 months arrears of salaries owed to its members.
The workers with various inscriptions “A worker is worthy of his wages”, “Abia State Government have turned ABSUTH workers to beggars”, “Is ABSUTH not part of Abia workers? among others chanted various anti-government songs to express their anger over the manner at which the government abandoned them to die in penury.
According to a cross-section of the workers, most of them do not know what their fate would be after leaving the protest venue as they have severally being threatened to be evicted from their houses by their landlords.
Others added that their children are now at home because they could not afford to pay their school fees again.
The workers who said that they could hardly afford a square meal, lamented that the inability of government to pay their salaries since February has caused death among their colleagues who they claimed died out of starvation.
The workers who said that they were going to embark on indefinite strike after 7days, disclosed that the inability of government to respect the agreement reached with the workers have led to the accumulation of pension to 40 months. This is as they questioned the sincerity of government in remitting the statutory monthly subvention of the establishment.
They warned that the workers would not have any other choice than to vote out the incumbent Abia governor in 2019 if he fails to pay the worker their salaries.
In a chat with our reporter Comrade Ogbonna E. Emmanuel, a worker I Abia State University Teaching Hospital (ABSUTH), said “we are staging this protest at this particular time of the year because the workers are dying. The government refused to pay us our salaries. It is exactly 10 months that we haven’t received our salaries.
“There is hunger everywhere. We can no longer be able to measure to our responsibilities in our various families; we can’t pay school fees.we can’t pay our house rents. We can no longer eat. Hunger is killing us by the day in hundreds. We are suffering in penury.
“We have been working and nobody is coming to our rescue, that’s why we are staging this protest at this hour, locking the whole gate, telling our patients to go. We won’t work again until the governor of Abia State pay us our 10 months arrears of salaries.
“We can’t continue this way. Our pensioners are still being owed for about 40 months. A worker deserves his wage. We are here to draw the attention of the government to the plights of workers here.
“This is the only teaching hospital in Abia State that is graduating medical doctors and other para-medical personnel and the second University Teaching Hospital established in Nigeria after the one in Ogun State.
“There is no structure on ground. We have been calling on the federal government to come and take control of the Abia State University Teaching Hospital.
“Abians deserve good health. We have been making every efforts to draw the attention of the government, even as we speak, there is a written agreement which the commissioner for health and his finance counterpart, Hon. Obinna Oriaku among others that signed the document urging us to suspend our strike which we did.
“The agreement was that they will be paying us every two months. The agreement however breached last month, since then, we haven’t received anything. It was at that time that we said No, that we are going to close up this place.
“Last year December, we protested 11 months arrears of salaries owed to the workers by the previous administration but Governor Okezie Ikpeazu out of his magnanimity paid off those 11 months. But now, the salaries have accumulated again for another 10 months.
“The decree which established a teaching hospital doesn’t make it a profit oriented institution, but a research institution where medical doctors and other health professionals will be trained.
“The internally generated revenues are used to run the affairs of the hospital, pending the subvention that is supposed to come from the government to augument and pay salaries.
“In our case, we have not seen any subvention from the government.
Dr. Eke Iwe, of the Association of Resident Doctors, ABSUTH said it is unfortunate that the issue has lingered and resulted to the protest and closure of the hospital gate.
According to Iwe, doctors at the teaching hospital find it difficult to pay their rents and their children’s school fees because of the inability of the state government to pay their salary, saying that it is not acceptable.
He said that while patients on emergency would be treated and those on admission attended to, stating that work at the clinic would be halted until their demands were met.
Comrade Slyvanus I. Kalu, the branch chairman Medical and Health Workers Union, ABSUTH chapter and joint secretary of all the workers unions decried the inability of government to keep to the agreement it had with the workers unions.
Kalu said that the government paid the workers their January salary on October 4 which was a clear breach of the agreement reached with the workers.
He said that at the end of this week, if the government fails to pay the workers, they were going to embark on indefinite strike which will paralyze every activity in the hospital.
