James Sowole in Akure
Activities at all government health facilities in Ondo City was Tuesday paralysed as health workers in the service of the Ondo State Government trooped out to streets to protest non payment of their five months salary.
The workers comprising doctors, nurses, phamacists, laboratory attendants, records officers gathered as early as 8a.m. at the Specialist Hospital Ondo with different placards and leave branches changing solidarity songs.
The protesters also barricaded road leading to the Mother and Child Hospital, thus paralysing vehicular activities in the area.
Some of the placards carried by the protesters include:”Pay our salaries “ “shall we die before you pay us” “we are saving life pay our salaries and safe us from hunger” among others.
However, the state government has appealed to the protesters to be patient with the government, saying efforts were ongoing on how to pay the workers salaries.
He said: “We will continue to beg the workers, it is not that the government is taking them for granted, it is due to the current economic situation but I want to assure them that very soon, the government will pay them.
“We understand them and they deserve to be paid, we did not stop working on the salary issue, very soon they will get their pay “
The aggrieved workers said lives had become so unbearable as they can no longer feed their families due to their unpaid salaries.
They lamented that they could no longer be the good husbands at home again.
Some doctors and nurses from Mother and Child Hospital and trauma center said despite their professional contributions to the medical village which had accorded it international recognition, the state government had refused to pay their wages.
The workers moved en masse to the palace of Osemawe of Ondo Kingdom , Oba Victor Kiladejo, to further express their grievances as they chanted war songs.
Addressing the health workers, Oba Kiladejo explained that he felt their pains and discomforts promising that he would discourse the issue.
The protest of the health workers left patients that came to various government hospitals unattended to.
