Monday, 28 September 2015

Emergency Medical Services In Rivers Threaten to Shut Down Hospital in 14 Days


Workers of the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) of the ministry of health have issued a 14-day ultimatum to the Rivers State Government (RSG) to pay them their over 10 months salary arrears or face a shutdown of the health facilities in the state.
This was contained in a statement signed by some of the workers.

The emergency medical service workers also want the RSG to regularise their appointment having worked for four years without formal employment.
A spokesman of the emergency medical services workers, Orwell Wali, said they were facing hard times as a result of nonpayment of their salaries.

He said: “we have been having series of meeting with our director and the permanent secretary Rivers State Ministry of Health and they promised that the governor had already approved the EMS and would work with them. They said that they would meet with us in few months and since then till date we have not heard anything from them. The situation on ground with us is that we have a lot of people working with us married and unmarried with children and no salary. Many of us have been pushed out of our houses and we don’t have where to stay.

“so we are calling on the government to please help us and listen to our needs. We have endured so much and no response. So we don’t want to keep it a secret again. We want to let the government know that we have been working fervently well. The hospital, the health centres and ever cases that we have been called on. Even on the sea we also work on emergency.

“so now we have given them 14 days and if 14 days elapses and the government do not adhere to our pleas,  we believe that we will go an close the gate in BMH,” he added.
The EMS said they were responsible for handling emergency cases such as accidents, disasters and epidemic outbreaks including flood catastrophes.

“we work with 112 in Rivers State and we also work with the health centres all over the state. The job we do there is that when they call us, we have locations. Our ambulances are numbered and we cover every location in Rivers State and when they call us and we have any accident in a particular area they will call that number and we will go there immediately and attend to that case. we have everything in our ambulance, our first aids, we are paramedics. We are trained for it. We even deliver pregnant women.

When contacted the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Health, Dr Harry Agba said the issue was before the State Governor, Nyesom Wike, for necessary action.


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