By Hassan Zaggi
There seems to be growing tension and uncertainties among health and medical workers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) over several months of unpaid salaries, three years promotion arrears (2016-2018), COVID-19 allowances for frontline workers at isolation centers and Skipping of newly employed medical doctors, our findings have revealed.
Following the growing tension, most of the health workers interviewed by our correspondents disclosed that their morale is low and that if the issues are not urgently tackled by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), there will be no guarantee for industrial harmony in the health sector in the next few days.
The most aggrieved group of the health workers, according to our findings, are the resident doctors.
Responding to questions, a medical practitioner in one of the hospitals in the FCT who pleaded anonymity lamented that: “It is quite unfair to the health workers especially the resident doctors who have their work place as the only source of income.
“Doctors who were promoted and backdated are yet to be paid arrears since 2016 and unfortunately, most are due for another promotion, hence, creating unnecessary backlogs.”
He, therefore, appealed to the FCTA to give priority attention to the frontline healthcare workers who are on a daily basis risking their lives during this COVID-19 period.
Most of the health workers, he said, are being infected by COVID-19 on a daily basis.
On her part, a nurse, who gave her name as Rose in one of the General Hospitals, called on the FCT administration to give proper attention to the health workers as, according to her, many are beginning to seek for greener pastures in other states and others outside the country, due to unfair treatment by the authorities in the FCT.
She called on the FCT Minister to, as a matter of urgency, meet the demands of the health workers before the relationship between the health workers and the FCTA gets to the lowest ebb.
