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UCH management, doctors bicker over unpaid allowances, shortfall in allocation

By Iyabo Lawal, Ibadan
08 November 2016   |   1:56 am
The management of the University College Hospital (UCH) and Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) are currently at loggerheads over the shortfall in the monthly allocation for the months of August and September.
Prof. Temitope Alonge

Prof. Temitope Alonge

The management of the University College Hospital (UCH) and Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) are currently at loggerheads over the shortfall in the monthly allocation for the months of August and September.

While the resident doctors are demanding payment of skipping allowance as done in the month of July, the authorities maintained that the shortfall in the allocation would not enable it to pay.Already, the resident doctors have since declared a five-day warning strike.

But the hospital management frowned at the action of the doctors describing it as, “most irresponsible and unionism rascality”. Incidentally, the disagreement is happening when medical students from Ghana, Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Cote d’Ivoire and other West African countries are having their examinations in the teaching hospital.

Speaking with reporters on the development, the Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Prof. Temitope Alonge said the action of the resident doctors was condemnable.

Prof Alonge assured all medical students from neighbouring African countries to continue with their examinations warning that any attempt to disturb them would be met withstiff resistance by security agents.

He said he was surprised that the resident doctors did not consider the fact that more than 90 per cent of teaching hospitals are not financially buoyant in this period of economic recession to pay the said allowance.

“Unionism is not synonymous with recklessness. I don’t know anywhere in the world where such recklessness can be allowed. You met at 11pm, issued a letter to my office and the next thing I heard this morning (Wednesday) was that they declared strike starting from 8am,” he wondered. “When we received the July allocation, we had surplus that we paid all doctors across board. But, the money available in the month of August was not available to pay Skipping allowance across board and the same thing happened in September. We met with them and sought for their decisions which the management complied with.”

But in his response, the President of the ARD, Dr. Luqman Ogunjimi and Secretary, Dr. Olusegun Olaopa said the action of the hospital management was deliberate and against industrial harmony.

“Earlier on October 7, the resident doctors had sent a letter notifying the management that our members have been repeatedly underpaid since 2014 and we were happy normalcy was restored in July 2016 when the Speaker of House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara intervened.

“On our part, we have kept to our side of the agreement and management is about defaulting. We wish to strongly advise that for the sake of industrial harmony, our members should not be underpaid in accordance with the said intervention of the Speaker.”

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