Unpaid Salaries: Ondo State Health Workers Shut Down Hospitals, Accuse Mimiko Of Hoarding Five Months’ Wages

Professional medical doctors and
pharmacists led the aggrieved health
workers who gathered at the main gate
of the facility of the Specialists Hospital
at the heart of the town in protest
against the insensitivity of the State
government to the plight of the workers.

Health workers ceased activities at the State
Specialists Hospital in Ondo town following
the non-payment of their five months’
outstanding salaries by the embattled Governor
Olusegun Mimiko-led administration.

The protesting health workers refused to attend
to patients in critical condition who were
hospitalized at the facility of the center while
the entrance to the main doors of the wards
were locked.

Sources close to SaharaReporters disclosed that
the aggrieved workers moved in batches and
also shut down the Trauma Centre, Mother and
Child Hospital, and the government’s Medial
Village Centre in Ondo State while paralyzing
activities at the hospitals.

Our correspondent gathered that the protesters
were armed with different placards as they
chanted solidarity songs and hurled abuses on
the Mimiko-led government, accusing it of
deliberately denying civil servants their
entitlements and wages.

One protesting doctor, Eniola Adebayo, said the
aggrieved health workers in the hospital were
tired of the empty promises made by the Ondo
State government regarding their outstanding
salaries.

Dr. Adebayo, who accused the State
government of deliberately hoarding workers’
salaries in the State, noted that many of the
health workers have been suffering while their
families have been languishing due to the non-
payment of wages.

“We are tired of this Mimiko’s government. Let
him pay our salaries before many of us begin to
die. We need funds to take care of our families
because some of us now borrow money from
friends and colleagues in other States to
survive.

“The governor is just not being compassionate
to the suffering and plight of workers. Mimiko
should tell us the reasons why he is deliberately
punishing us by withholding our entitlements, or
is he trying to tell us there are no funds to offset
all these outstanding wages?

“Life has become unbearable for us due to the
recalcitrant character of this Mimiko
government. Many people close to him told us
the governor is deliberately hoarding salaries,
hence the reason for the protest that our
members carried out today,” she said.

One of the pharmacists who pleaded anonymity
told our correspondent that the protesting
health workers threatened to continually
boycott their professional duties until the State
government is ready to begin a dialogue and
pay their outstanding salaries and bonuses.

“We shall continue with the strike until the
Mimiko-led government is willing to pay us our
entitlements,” he quickly said.

An impeccable source in Ondo town told
SaharaReporters that the striking health
workers later terminated their protest at the
palace of the monarch, the Osemawe of Ondo
Kingdom, Victor Adesimbo Kiladejo, who
promised to intervene for the timely payment
of their salaries.

Source: Saharareporters