Casualisation, non-payment of salaries: Staff shortage hits UNTH as doctors continue strike

UNTH

A massive shortage of medical manpower has hit the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu State, following retirement of several doctors in the hospital.

The Nation learned that while there are many more who are due for retirement, plenty of other young medics have left the hospital for greener pastures abroad.

The Nation also learnt that the growing dearth of doctors in the hospital had forced a response from the management of the hospital, who had in 2021, decided to engage over 160 medical doctors under a local arrangement known as Locum with a promise to regularise them to join the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) in six months.

However, these medical personnel, it was gathered, have been in practice in the last two years and not sure when their conversion would come.

The Nation learned that while the medical personnel employed under Locum continued to work, they were however being owed not less than two months arrears of their monthly stipend as they are yet to be paid salaries.

The development has currently grounded medical activities at the hospital as resident doctors under the aegis of Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), UNTH, Enugu Chapter, have down tools.

The doctors, whose national association, the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), had recently called off its industrial action, have refused to resume work at the UNTH, Enugu.

In fact, less than 24 hours after the national strike was called off, members at UNTH, Enugu, convened an emergency congress and declared the continuation of the industrial action.

She expressed worry over the prolonged locum tag on the over 160 resident doctors, urging the management to urgently resolve the issues.

She said: “Imagine as a doctor, you were employed and over two years you move from being a registrar, to being a senior registrar and on your way to becoming a consultant, yet you are still a contract staff, you are not entitled to anything, you are not entitled to Medical Residency Training Fund, you are not entitled to pension deductions. It is unacceptable that medical doctors will be casualised.

“The management keeps telling us there is an embargo on employment, that they can’t get a waiver, but here in our Southeast, we all know that other centres surrounding us have employed their own locum staff.Chairman of the Association of Resident Doctors, UNTH Enugu Chapter, Dr. Chinazom Ekwueme, decried the predicament of her colleagues, describing it as unacceptable and pitiable. Nation

 

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