Front view of the Karaga District Hospital
Casual workers of the Karaga District Hospital in the Northern Region have laid down their tools over their unpaid salary arrears.
According to the striking workers, they had sent a petition to the Karaga health director, the chief of Karaga and the district chief executive, indicating that by the close of September 2017 if they are not paid their arrears, they would lay down their tools.
They threatened that the strike would continue until their salary arrears are paid.
Speaking to DAILY GUIDE, Alhassan Abdul Samed, organiser for the casual workers of Karaga District Hospital, stated that they cannot continue to work without pay.
He revealed that some of the workers are not indigenes of the land and have rented rooms in the community with their families because the hospital does not provide them with accommodation.
“We are made to pay our rents ourselves, how do we make the payments when our salaries are not paid, how do we take care of our families?” he asked.
Alhassan Abdul Samed appealed to the management of the hospital to, at least, pay half of their arrears in order to show that they are committed to settling the arrears because they have families who depend on them.
The casual workers at the Karaga District Hospital are in charge of record keeping, dispensary, accounts office and the administration of the facility.
When DAILY GUIDE visited that facility, the Medical Superintendent of the Karaga Hospital, Dr Abdul Aziz, confirmed that “we are in huge debts, we have not been able to pay the casual workers for the past nine months and they are striking. The only thing I can do is to beg them, even though I honestly don’t know when they will be paid.”
He mentioned that the facility has not received any payments from the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), which is their main source of revenue generation.
FROM Eric Kombat, Karaga