Cobwebs, reptiles and weeds have taken over the premises the Federal Medical Centre, Asaba, Delta State.
This is no thanks to the alleged shortfall in health workers’ salaries and allowances that crippled the activities of the institution early last month as the staff embarked on strike.
The strike is about the seventh of its kind in the past one year.
The current strike, it was learnt, was as a result of “the foot dragging by the management of the hospital in enlisting their staff into the Integrated Personal Payroll system”.
Sixty per cent of the consultant doctors attached to the hospital are now diverting patients to their own hospitals.
When The Eagle Online visited the premises of the FMC along the popular West-End Road in Asaba, it was a ghost of its former self except for the presence of few security guards.
Health workers, under the aegis of Joint Health Sector Unions, FMC branch, Asaba, had alleged an unimaginable shortfall in their 2014 February salaries, vowing to sustain the strike.
The Chairman of JOHESU, Comrade Asiodu Anthony, said “over N50,000 was confiscated from my February salary”.
Corroborating Anthony, the Chairman of the Nigeria Medical Association in Delta State, Dr. Uyi Osarenkhoe, confirmed the strike, adding that resident doctors were also affected by the shortfall.
The abandoned wards and premises of the hospital are overgrown with weeds and cobwebs, even as reptiles were seen crawling round the walls of the offices.
When the strike broke out last month, relatives of patients on admission had hectic time evacuating their loved ones to private hospitals where they were heavily charged.
Efforts to speak with the Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Leo Erhunmwunse, yielded no fruit.
Trending
- EPL: Arsenal hammer Chelsea to move three points clear at the top
- Breaking: Nigeria loses another veteran Nollywood actor
- Minister summons Lead British International School over bullying allegation
- Sex scandal : We won’t oppose any sanction against lecturer -UNN-ASUU
- Sanwo-Olu unveils EKO CARES
- UNN suspends lecturer for alleged sexual misconduct, begins probe
- Oyo LG honours Archbishop Ladigbolu, names road after late father, Akee Obayanritan
- Kogi Assembly blasts EFCC, demands removal of ‘wanted’ from Yahaya Bello’s name