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JUST IN……UITH resident doctors protest over 40% salary deduction
By Arowona Abdulazeez
The Association of Resident Doctor (ARD), University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) Chapter has commenced a three days warning strike actions to protest deductions in their salaries.
Speaking with newsmen on Friday in Ilorin, Dr Ige Alexander, Chairman ARD, UITH Chapter stated that since 2014, only a fraction of their salaries were being paid.
Alexander noted that ARD members across other Teaching Hospitals in Nigeria were being paid full salaries and “wondered why they were being short-changed”.
The ARD chairman said the UITH management gave them the excuse that the management had to employ additional house officers in the hospital and that the money accrued to them by Federal Government was not enough.
“It is only in this Teaching Hospital we are seeing this, other states across the country are paying full salaries,” he said.
The chairman lamented the deductions in their salaries is becoming unbearable and is affecting their livelihood and families.
Reacting to the Protest, Prof Abdulwaheed Olatinwo, Chief Medical Director of UITH told the ARD members that this is a general problem that is not relegated to UITH alone.
According to him, the ARD should prioritize the lives of their patient first before anything.
He however empathize with them over their struggle for better remuneration, saying that the Federal Government was doing all it can to rectify the problem.
Olatinwo told them that there was no deductions in salaries rather the government was owing them and would soon pay all outstanding debts.
He further explains to them that house officers were critically needed in the UITH, hence the need to employ additional hands.
ROYAL NEWS gathered that the doctors engage in singing slogans and carrying placards with the inscriptions: “ARD says no to incomplete salaries”, “#Bring back our money”, and “Nothing but full salaries” among others.
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