Defying the advice of the Nigerian Police, the 352 interns from the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), on Monday staged a peaceful protest in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, demanding their 11 months salary arrears from the hospital management.
The interns protested on the streets of Calabar peacefully, chanting solidarity songs and carrying placards with various inscriptions as “pay UCTH interns now,” “Don’t harass us, Pay us now,” “11 months without interns salary”.
Speaking with newsmen during the protest, Gideon Duba, an intern, explained that UCTH was owing them for 11 months and whenever they engaged the management over the matter, the only response they got was that the issue “is a national issue”.
Duba alleged that the UCTH had used the police to intimidate them several times in the past, adding that their salaries arrears amounted to about N480 million, just as he called on the Federal Government, the EfCC and the Minister of Health to help to resolve the non-payment of their salaries.
“We keep on engaging the management, but they say we are disturbing. We have worked and asked for our salary, but they say we are disturbing; that we are causing security threats. A memo was released on the 2nd of August placing us on a one month suspension to allow for the resolving of the issue. Up until now, nothing has been done.
“They said we should write an apology letter, we have done so, yet no solution. The management is not sincere in this whole thing. We are 352 in number. We are owed over N480 million and when you open up, they will call the security agency to come after you.
“We are being enslaved we call on the Federal Government, the EFCC and the Minister of Health, to please look into this issue”, he pleaded.
Also speaking, another intern, Miss Nmuoeke Maurine, said: “The reason for our protest is because of our 11 months salaries and over two months suspension that we don’t even know when it will be called off.
“We have not done anything to the management to attract this unfair treatment. None of us has received up to a month’s salary for the past 11 months. I guess the money should be available because other medical institutions are being paid.”
Shadrach Atheodor also spoke in like manner, adding, “We are not here to fight or make a problem. Our emphasis is that we should be paid.”
The interns, Nigerian Tribune gathered, would be completing their internship by October this year. This means that they have barely three weeks to leave without their salaries.
Meanwhile, in a two-page document signed by the Director of Administration of the teaching hospital, Ededet Eyoma, and obtained by Tribune Online, the UCTH management insisted that the internship programme had been suspended till further notice by the UCTH Governing Board.
The management, therefore, distanced itself from the activities of the interns.
The UCTH management further accused the interns of security threats and plans to kidnap the Chief Medical Director CMD and other management staff and issued a death threat as well.
The management described the activities of the interns as “criminal”, but promised that “management has continued to and will persist in her engagements with all relevant authorities until the shortfalls in all our non-regular allocations are addressed and all our staff, including interns, are paid their due emoluments.”
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