The Senior Staff Association of Universities, Teaching Hospitals, Research Institutes, and Associated Institutions (SSAUTHRIAI) staged a protest at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital in Calabar, causing disruption to the hospital’s activities on Wednesday.
The union demonstration was in response to the hospital’s excessive intrusion into its operations.
The protest, which was at the behest of the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC), was led by the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) chapter’s chairman, Com. Dominic Effiong.
In his speech at the protest, Effiong expressed that the demonstration was a show of support for the psychiatric hospital chapter, which has been facing conflict with the management.
The situation escalated when the national chairman, who is also a hospital staff member, Com. Ken Bassey, was unjustly apprehended by the Cross River State Police Command’s anti-robbery unit.
Effiong alleged that the arrest of Bassey, also a former chapter chairman of the SSAUTHRIAI of the hospital, on a through-up charge on July 25, was masterminded by the hospital’s management.
“We discovered during efforts to secure his release that his arrest had to do with the issue of handing over a vehicle of the union, which management had no business interfering with,” he stated.
The chairman of UCTH accused the management of the psychiatric hospital of interfering with the union’s efforts to hold elections for the hospital chapter of SSAUTHRIAI.
He also mentioned that the management had declined to acknowledge the caretaker committee that was established due to the delay in conducting the union’s election.
Corroborating Effiong’s position, Ken Bassey explained that his ordeal started shortly after he was elected the national chairman of SSAUTHRIAI.
“My election as national chairman came while I was still serving as the psychiatric hospital chapter chairman, and I had to relinquish one for the other since I couldn’t hold two positions at the same time.
“I decided on May 1, 2023, to relinquish my position as branch chairman to the vice chairman, who became acting chairman.
“The branch election was supposed to take place on May 23, but we suddenly discovered that the two candidates running for the position of chairman were from the same unit, which is against the union’s constitution.
“When both candidates refused to step down for each other, the NEC, in its wisdom, disqualified both of them from contesting the election,” he explained.
Bassey stated that this is where his ordeal began, as the disqualification did not go down well with the management, which was sponsoring one of the disqualified candidates.
He noted that it was as a result of this that the management dissolved the executive in place and suspended the union’s activities, in addition to its refusal to recognise the caretaker committee subsequently put in place by the NEC.
On the issue of the vehicle that led to his arrest, Bassey explained that he was duly authorised to go with the vehicle as a parting gift.
“The vehicle is still impounded by the police even after I presented the documents that transfer the ownership of the vehicle to me,” he said.
Meanwhile, the management has described the SSAUTHRIAI leadership allegations as baseless, adding that all that is necessary to ensure peace in the hospital will be done.
The hospital’s acting Chief Medical Director, Dr Theophilus Osim, said that he only stopped the desperation of certain persons to throw the hospital into chaos.
“Their desperation to install their stooges into positions would have thrown the hospital into a crisis that the management had to step in to avert,” he stated.
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