Abuja’s Doctors Decry Unpaid Salaries, Deplorable State of Hospitals

The Association of Resident Doctors in the Federal Capital Territory Administration has raised alarm about the neglect of hospitals and welfare of doctors, charging the FCT Minister, Nyesome Wike, to give priority to healthcare facilities.

This was disclosed on Channels Television’s Politics on Wednesday, President of ARD FCTA, Dr. George Ebong, expressed concerns over the state of hospitals and non-payment salaries to some doctors for six months salaries. The association had given Wike a 21-day ultimatum on December 23, 

2024, to address the association’s demands.

He stated, “We feel that we are the human abandoned project. No matter how many things he does by fixing up roads and bridges, the hospitals are the very first point of renovation and rehabilitation.

“The hospitals are hallowed ground, you cannot neglect them. Abuja hospitals can be better. The minister needs to visit all the hospitals and see the states in which the hospitals are at the moment. I would also urge the minister to please try to make sure that wages are paid.”

He continued, “We’ve got some of the doctors that have not been paid six months’ salaries and they worked for it and they are still working. We’ve got some hospitals that are working but they are not a conducive environment for us to work.

George highlighted the shortage of doctors in some hospitals and lack adequate equipment to perform their duties effectively.

“We have a severe shortage of manpower where you have a doctor doing the job of five doctors and we’ve got some hospitals where you don’t even have equipment to do the job you should do.

“Some of the x-rays are not working but then we have some demands as well where we have doctors who write exams all the time for updates, I mean for progress and then we’ve not been paid for last year and this is another year.

“We’ve not been paid the housing allowance but accumulated for a long time and we talked to them about this and they tell us in the budgets and it is so sad that every other centre has gotten this allowance paid aside from us in FCT.”

He stated that congress will initiate an indefinite shutdown if the situation is not addressed on time.

He added, “Pay us our wages, so you don’t kill the passion of those that are even staying back to work, medicine has to go with passion. You can’t take passion out of medicine.

“We’ve got doctors who wrote their exams, passed for the past five years, should be consultants by now and they’ve not been made consultants.

“Their files are not even anywhere to be found and so we have all this agitation, we have the skipping arrears, we are actually at the breaking point and if we continue to keep quiet, the medical system in Abuja is going to be forgotten.

“We’re going to reassess the situation on the ground and hopefully reassess. If the congress feels that nothing has been done based on the facts on the ground, then the congress will not have a choice than to ask that we go on a timeless shutdown.” he revealed