UMTH security guards protest over salaries

Private security guards deployed to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital in Borno State on Monday staged a peaceful demonstration to protest the non-payment of their three months salary arrears.

The demonstrators, who are employees of Crown Guards Security Company, blocked the entrance to the hospital and denied members of staff and visitors entry into the facility.

Also, relatives of patients were forced to park outside and walk their patients into the hospital.

Some of the protesters, who spoke to journalists, said that in spite of rendering essential services of securing the hospital since January, they were being owed three months salaries from March to June, without any explanation for the non-payment.

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However, it took the intervention of the military that met with the protesting workers at the hospital gate and pleaded with them to settle the issue amicably with the hospital’s management.

Reacting, the UMTH Chief Medical Director, Prof. Ahmed Ahidjo, appealed to the protesting workers to be calm, saying that the hospital is doing its best to settle the issue with their company.

“My attention has been drawn to an incident at the hospital gate where Crown Security guards have blocked the gate and denied our personnel entry because they are staging a protest over non- payment of their salary arrears.

“The major challenge is that security and cleaning services have been outsourced by the Federal Government. They are now being run by private companies that are responsible for the payment.

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“They are essentially not the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital staff. Generally, we liaise and work with their companies,” he explained.

The chief medical director appealed to the Federal Government to come to their rescue by paying for the outsourced services so that it can settle the companies providing the service.

While promising that the hospital’s management is making efforts to ensure the settlement of all salary arrears, Ahidjo appealed to the protesting workers to remain calm and not deny people access to essential health services.