Patients at Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital (EKSUTH), Ado-Ekiti were stranded for hours yesterday, following protest by medical workers in the health institution over alleged unpaid emoluments by the management.
The protesters locked the main gate of the tertiary health facility located at Adebayo area of Ado-Ekiti and sealed off the hospital, leaving patients at the wards unattended to.
Some of the out-patients, who besieged the hospital for medical treatment, were disappointed as the main gate was locked by the protesting workers, thus preventing them for accessing the health facility.
The protesters chanted anti-government songs to deride government’s action over the plight of workers.
Addressing the workers, the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) Chairman, EKSUTH chapter, Omotola Farotimi, predicated their action on non-payment of salary arrears, cooperative deductions, non-implementation of minimum wage and unpaid leave bonuses.
Farotimi lamented that cooperative deductions had not been paid by the management in the last 24 months, thereby increasing the tally to an aggregate of N1.6billion, without hope that the amount would be defrayed in record time.
“When this government came in 2018, the aggregate of the outstanding deductions was a sum of N500 million. But now, it has swelled to as much as N1.6billion.
“Another issue that has been agitating our minds is the issue of minimum wage. It has been implemented for workers at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido-Ekiti. Even in Ekiti State, all health workers are being paid, except our members.
“At the last meeting held by the hospital’s board, it approved the payment of minimum wage for us, yet nothing was done up till now. We can no longer wait and begin to suffer in silence. We must cry to the government.