UCTH casual workers protest over unpaid 14 months allowances

Workers in the sanitation department of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) have protested the non-payment of their 14 months salary.

Expressing their displeasure over the development, the angry casual staffers barricaded the entry gate to the hospital stopping staff and patients from entering the premises.

Led by their Chairman, Fortune Sampson, they carried placards and chanted solidarity songs.

Sampson said: “We handle the sanitation of the hospital by cleaning the offices, toilets, mortuary and floors of the hospital and for fourteen months now we have not been paid our monthly stipends in spite of the hazardous work we do.”

He said their situation became out of hand when on Monday 19th December, 2016 they got a letter from the hospital management terminating their services without any form of prior information or notification.

He explained: “We have worked with this hospital for five years now on a monthly allowance of N15, 000 and for the past one year and four months, I have not been paid and yet I have been reporting for work only for them to tell me my services are no more required.”

The protesters appealed to the Federal Ministry of Health to look into their plight and instruct the management of the hospital to pay them their stipend as many of them have been thrown out of their rented apartments owing to their inability to pay rents while others cannot feed themselves and their families.

He added: “Though we are just paid N15000 per month, we were able to do the work diligently. So, we are appealing to the Federal Ministry of Health to come to our aid as some of us have been ejected from our apartments while some cannot even feed their families again.”

The Coordinator of Icon Consult, the firm in charge of the sanitation at the hospital, Mrs. Janet Amba, said: “I cannot pay them when the hospital has not paid me. The Chief Medical Director of the Hospital, Professor Thomas Agan has said we should suspend work while he makes efforts to pay us and when that is done I shall pay them.”
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