Senior medical practitioners working with the Ekiti State University Ado Ekiti says it may sooner or later not be able to guarantee smooth healthcare services any further.
The experts under the aegis of the Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, EKSUTH Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State Chapter said the decision is sequel to the alleged poor welfare, irregular payment of salaries and failure of the state government to honour the agreement reached with the experts during recruitment.
The statement of the association is coming barely few weeks after the resident doctors in the hospital embarked on indefinite strike owing to similar reasons.
In a statement signed by the Chairman of the association Dr. L.O OLUWOLE and the secretary, DR. T.A AGBESANWA, the association noted that its members and other staff in EKSUTH were in profound sufferings due to Poor remuneration, unpaid salaries and other allowances, poor basic health infrastructure and poor job satisfaction which they said were the major causes of brain drain.
They urged Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi to urgently attend to the plight of welfare of healthcare workers in the hospital saying mass exodus of health workers especially doctors, pharmacists , nurses and laboratory scientists may soon hit EKSUTH due to lack of funding and such may lead to a serious health crisis in the institutions including loss of accreditation for both the training of medical students and resident doctors.
“The statement reads ” The imminent mass exodus of health workers from EKSUTH will definitely erode the various gains after close to a decade before the full accreditation was secured by the subsequent Governments.
“At the inception of Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital (EKSUTH) Ado-Ekiti in 2008, Medical and Dental Consultants were recruited on the basis of the assurance that the salaries of the Consultants in the EKSUTH will be in tandem with other Teaching Hospitals in the country via the Establishment circular SMHOG.31/25, signed by M.O. Aiyeleso for Head of Service dated 3rd of July, 2008.
“In 2010 when a revised Salary Structure tagged “Consolidated Medical Salary Structure” (CONMESS) and Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) were approved in the Federal Teaching Hospitals, Ekiti State Government promptly accepted the circular and approved its implementation in line with the Government policy on equality of status between Ekiti State Teaching Hospital and the Federal Teaching Hospitals in Nigeria.
“The failure of Ekiti State Government to implement these new salary adjustments and allowances has generated a lot of anxiety and reduced confidence of our members in the ability of the Government to stand by his documented position on equity of status of Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital when compared with other Teaching Hospitals (Ref. SMHOG.31/25). This has also reduced the confidence of the Medical Consultants and other Health workers vis- a- vis the future of their careers within the system.
“It is on record that other workers in the State have been paid as and when due with removal of minimum wage adjustment which was added to some categories that benefitted.
“EKSUTH did not benefit from minimum wage unlike other civil servants in the State and their counterparts at the Federal health institutions in Nigeria, EKSUTH did not also benefit from COVID-19 allowances like other States and Federal owned Health Institutions in Nigeria.
“The subvention given to EKSUTH by Ekiti State Government has not been increased since 2013 despite the obvious increment in the salary wage bill of the hospital mainly due to annual increment and promotion of staff and not minding the running expenses of the hospital”.
