The volunteer medical personnel at the Lagos state Ebola Treatment Centre have called on both the federal and state government to give them the allowances due them.
This was made known on Thursday, October 2, 2014 by some of the aggrieved workers to some journalists at the Lagos Treatment Centre pointing out that the pay for the month of September has not been given to them.
Furthermore, while speaking with the journalists, Punch reports that one of them, a nurse who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be stigmatised, said they received a message from their coordinators that state government had given directives that operations at the centre be shut down on Thursday, even when their monies had not been paid.
He said, ” We were told last night that they will shut down the centre today (Thursday) but they did not mention anything about the money they are owing us.
“They should settle us because there will be no one to complain to when the centre has been shut down. Everybody is praising Nigeria that it contained Ebola, meanwhile the people that worked are not yet compensated. We have not even been addressed formerly, they just discarded us as if we committed a crime by volunteering.”
Further speaking, he revealed that doctors are paid N50, 000 per shift while nurses are paid N40, 000.
Meanwhile, on the wake of the Ebola outbreak, FG announced a special emergencey fund of which Lagos state received 250 million naira. It was learnt that the doors to the Ebola centre were all under lock and key with the environment seemingly dry as nothing was happening inside.
However, another volunteer nurse appealed to the Federal Government to look into the non-payment of their allowances and do something about it in order to encourage both them and other citizens to be willing to volunteer themselves subsequently if need be.
She said, ” Government should be responsible. They promised to give us life insurance, we have not heard anything about that.
” They said they will give us 1million upfront. They have not. We risked our lives, stigma and our livelihood to work here, the least they can do is to pay us as of when due.
” They were always delaying paying us. But if they are going to shut down, they should pay us for what we tirelessly worked for. If not, nobody will answer or volunteer when next they call.”
However, all efforts to reach the state Commissioner For Health Dr. Jide Idris, proved abortive as he neither responded to his calls nor replied text messages sent to his phone.
