Fejiro Oliver
The Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) is set to boil very soon as information currently available to us is that staffers are planning a show down with the management over irregularities in the hospital.
One of such mishap we gathered is the refusal of the Hospital management to release the list of promoted staff two years after the promotion exam was done. Fact findings by us reveals that the management has purposely delayed the letters to avoid paying the arrears accrued to promoted staff. Information at our disposal has it that the management has told the Federal Ministry of Health that the letters have been given to promoted staff, prompting the Ministry to release the salary increment, which was diverted to top members of the management team, before the advent of the IPPIS. This we reliably confirmed is not the first time, as the Hospital has continuously indulged in this illegal act for over five years. Other Teaching Hospitals contacted by us confirmed to us that they immediately release their promotion list two or three weeks after the exams have been taken, casting a shadow on the deliberate practice by LUTH.
Impeccable sources within the hospital management revealed to us that LUTH has been illegally deducting tax over the stipulated amount for two and half years, which was made open through the IPPIS. We gathered that the management has received complaints on this malpractice, but have refused to refund back all the tax over deducted from the workers. Information also at our disposal says that most of the medical staff has been paid two steps backward, contrary to what their colleagues in other hospitals are earning from the same Federal Government that pays.
A visit to LUTH by our correspondent met a shocker as only two nurses are mandated to take care of 28 to 30 patients daily, leading to poor medical treatment in the hospital, with this scenario going on for 2 to 3 years now; reveal a source in the hospital. Fact findings also reveal that there are no equipments to work with in the hospital, while the available ones are outdated and no longer functioning, which a medical officer described to us as “a mortuary hospital”. The expensive equipments we also gathered are neatly kept for the use of VIP members only, leaving the vulnerable patients as only bed warmers. The atmosphere met by our correspondent in which most of the medical workers were operating was devoid of light, yet the patients are charged outrageous fees. The uniform allowances paid clinical staff we gathered have not been paid for this year, while their counterpart hospitals paid theirs since February of this year.
