Members of the Ondo State Chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association have raised alarm on alleged arrest of the coordinator of the congress called for the
ratification of the industrial action billed to start on Thursday across the state, Dr. Zaccheaus Tolani Gbelela.
Nigerian Medical Association members at an ongoing congress holding at the NMA House, Akure said that Dr. Gbelela and some key officials coordinating the proposed industrial action were picked by security agents at the behest of the government whom they accused of failing to pay back-log of five months salary and other allowances.
Apart from the arrest of Nigerian Medical Association’s key officials, the government is also accused of allegedly sponsoring contract attackers to target and intimidate members of Doctors’ immediate and extended family in order to cow aggrieved workers into silence in the face of what they described as “Industrial Injustices”.
The NMA alleged that Dr. Gbelela who works with the Mother and Child Hospital in Akure was threatened with possible elimination if he did not stop his co-medical workers from embarking on an indefinite strike.
The doctors alleged that most hospitals in Ondo State are now under-staffed as doctors have been leaving in droves. For example the State Specialist Hospital in Akure that is supposed to have forty house officers presently has just five. Also, while senior doctors are owed five months salaries, the junior doctors are owed between six and eight months salaries. The Nigerian Medical Association therefore accuses the administration of Dr. Olusegun Mimiko of callous indifference to the continued pauperization of all categories of workers in the state.
Details later.