Medical Doctors in Abia State, barricaded the entrance gate to Abia Government House Umuahia on Thursday, to protest 24-month salary arrears owed medical and non medical staff of Abia State University Teaching Hospital Aba (ABSUTH).
The doctors who marched to the streets in large numbers were also protesting the Health Management Board owing doctors and other personnel 13 months in arrears.
Doctors from different parts of the state converged at the Federal Medical Centre Umuahia before proceeding to the Government House Gate, chanting solidarity songs as they marched on the road.
They also carried placards with different inscriptions such as:”Doctors lives matter”;”Our salary is our entitlement”; “2 years without salary ‘no be jokes’”; ” Man’s inhumanity to man”, among others.
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Dr. Isaiah Abali, the chairman of the Nigeria Medical Association’s (NMA) Abia State chapter, who was leading the procession, vented the grievances of the protesting doctors at the Government House’s entrance gate. He claimed that due to months of unpaid wages, doctors working for the State Government were going through hell.
He decried the condition of the affected doctors many of whom he said, “no longer meet their daily needs”.
Dr Abali who expressed sadness over Government’s inability to clear the backlog of salary arrears of doctors, prayed God to judge anybody playing politics with the welfare of doctors.
He said that the protest had no political undertones whatsoever, and asked Government to stop giving excuses but clear the outstanding arrears.
Speaking earlier, NMA Secretary, Dr Daniel Ekeleme, narrated the bitter experiences of some doctors in the hands of their landlord following their inability to renew their house rents.
” Land lords no longer accept Abia doctors because we can’t pay house rent any more. Some of us can no longer pay our children ‘s school fees. Feeding has become a big challenge now, all because Abia State Government has refused to pay us.
” Abia doctors are the least paid in the country. Out of the 36 states, Abia is the only state where doctors are owed for years.
” We have begged, we have made appeals but they fell on deaf ears; now we are here so the world can hear us. Doctors are dying in Abia. Next time we will come with the bodies of some of our members who have died as a result of hardship. Is it a curse to be a doctor in Abia?”
Adding her voice, a Consultant Hematologist at ABSUTH, Dr Chika Uche, said it was wickedness for Government which “receives allocation every month” to pay political office holders with jumbo allowances but owe workers who earn peanuts.
She noted that some of the staff members of the affected institutions include cleaners and other non-medical staff with meagre pay.
The Consultant Hematologist described the adamancy of Government to the plight of doctors as cruelty and the height of insensitivity.
Meanwhile, no Government official came to receive nor address the protesting doctors, who later dispersed after narrating their ordeals to newsmen and some passersby.
A detachment of armed police personnel was, however, on ground probably to maintain peace and order.
NMA had towards the end of last year threatened to cripple the entire health sector of the state until Government cleared the salary arrears.
The medical body also declared indefinite strike in both public and private hospitals in the state but despite the threats, Government is yet to meet the demands of the doctors.
