Chief Medical Director of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), Professor Thomas Agan, has said that the management of the hospital cannot implement government’s “no-work, no pay” policy because the striking workers are employed by the government itself and their salaries are paid by the Federal Ministry of Finance.

 

Professor Agan made this known in Calabar while speaking on the impact the strike has had on patients in the hospital as well as the issues that conduced to the strike.

 

“The employer of labour is the government itself and I agree that the ministry wrote a letter where they said we should apply the no work no pay rule and we should make an alternative arrangement.

 

“All those things boil down to money and I don’t know where we will get the money to employ. The government is a major employer of labour so like I tell people, no work no pay should actually be applied by the government itself because salaries are paid from the ministry of finance and not the hospital so government has the right to suspend payment of all salaries until people return to work”, the CMD said.

He decried the industrial unrest that has bedevilled the health sector in recent time stressing that the health sector has been virtually paralyzed because of intermittent strike actions.

 

Professor Agan who is also the Chairman of the Committee of Chief Medical Directors in the Country said the committee is distressed by the frequent strike actions and called on all to have respect for human lives.

 

“At my own level which is the committee of CMD’S, we feel pained that this matter is still lingering because, at the end of it, we are the ones who are sitting at the border. At the end of the day, the government will ask us what did you do, how did you manage the situation and what happened.

 

“We will continue to work with the government to ensure that all lingering issues in the health sector are handled. All we need to do is to trust one another, have respect for one another and also for the human life. The life we are protecting may be our own lives and like I always tell people, the death of one person may mean zero percent to the nation but it can mean 100 percent to the family directly involved”.

Source : Oracle Newspaper