Workers of the Abia State Hospital Management Board (HMB), on Monday, barred the management staff from gaining access to the premises, while protesting the 10 months salary arrears.
The workers carried several placards with different inscriptions, ranging from: “Pay us our 10 months’ salary, is our own different? HMB workers are dying,” etc, that portray their anger, threatened to down tools if the government failed to clear the backlog of salaries it owes the staff of the agency.
They wondered how the state government could turn blind eyes on the welfare of the health workers.
Spokesperson of the workers and Chairman, Medical and Hospitals Workers Union, HMB chapter, Comrade Patrick Nwaukwa, lamented the conditions of the HMB workers.
Nwaukwa who accused the government of being insensitive to their plights disclosed that most of the staff of the state government agency are finding life unbearable, stressing that to cope with family responsibilities including payment of their house rents have become a big challenge to them.
Calling on Governor Okezie Ikpeazu to end the workers’ grief, the union leader accused the state government of making what he described as empty promises to them.
The Public Relations Officer of the State Ministry of Health, Franca Ekwueme, could not be reached for comments at the time of filing the report.
The workers, however, said that there is no going back on their protest, until the government goes beyond verbal promises to save the workers from the embarrassment they have suffered from their landlords and their crditors.