By Ushang Ewa
Ahead of the planned meeting between medical interns and the management of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) slated for noon today, the premises is currently surrounded by security personnel.
The interns are owed nearly half a billion Naira for their salaries spanning a period of 11 months. Several meetings and negotiations broke down leading them to protest.
And, a few days ago, the management is said to have issued a memo calling for a meeting between all interns and the management scheduled for noon today. But, there was a change in that plan.
“They (management) now sent messages to a few people that they want to meet with them first before the general meeting which is suspicious so we are insisting they meet with everyone,” an intern (name withheld) told this Newspaper.
“If they don’t have a sinister motive, why will they want to meet with a few people instead of all of us as they had earlier planned? Maybe they want to pay those few and make us lose our 11 months salary,” a second intern (name withheld) said.
The meeting with the representatives is supposed to hold by 10:00AM.
Before their protest, the leaders of the interns were invited by the Police and Nigeria’s secret police, the SSS.
It will be recalled that the management had suspended all 350 interns for “embarrassing” the hospital.
More details later…
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