No fewer than 40 casual staff of University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) embarked on massive protest yesterday over nonpayment of 14 months’ salaries.
They were led by Comrade Fortune Sampson, said to be the head of the sanitation department of the hospital.
Reacting, Chief Medical Director of the Hospital, Professor Thomas Agan, appealed to the striking workers to suspend their action, as the management was making efforts to pay them.
The workers barricaded the entry gate to the hospital as early as 6 am, chanting solidarity songs and stopping both staff and patients from accessing the hospital. Both cars and pedestrians were turned back by the angry workers.
Speaking to journalists, Sampson said, “We handle the sanitation of the hospital by cleaning the offices, toilets, mortuary and floors and for 14 months now we have not been paid our monthly stipends in spite of the hazardous work we do.”
Sampson said they were irked by a letter dated Monday, 19th December from the hospital management terminating their appointments without any word about their backlog of salaries.
“We have worked with this hospital for five years now on a monthly allowance of N15,000 and for the past one year and four months , I have not been paid and yet I have been reporting for work only for them to tell me my services are no more required,” Samson said.
