the Federal and the Lagos State government to pay their allowances.
According to some of the volunteers who spoke to our correspondent at
the Lagos Treatment Centre, on Thursday, they had yet to receive
payment for the month of September.
(Photo: Lagos Ebola Isolated Centre)
One of them, a nurse who spoke on condition of anonymity because he
did not want to be stigmatised, said they received a message from
their coordinators that state government had given directives that
operations at the centre be shut down on Thursday, even when their
monies had not been paid.
He said, " We were told last night that they will shut down the centre
today ( Thursday)but they did not mention anything about the money
they are owing us.
" They should settle us because there will be no one to complain to
when the centre has been shut down. Everybody is praising Nigeria that
it contained Ebola, meanwhile the people that worked are not yet
compensated. We have not even been addressed formerly, they just
discarded us as if we committed a crime by volunteering."
According to him, doctors are paid N50, 000 per shift while nurses are
paid N40, 000.
Our correspondent observed that the doors leading to the centre were
padlocked and no activity was going on at the centre on Thursday.
Another volunteer, who is also a nurse called on the Federal
Government to address the delay in the payment of their allowances and
warned that failure to do so now, would discourage people from
volunteering in the future.
She said, " Government should be responsible. They promised to give us
life insurance, we have not heard anything about that .
" They said they will give is N1m upfront. They have not. We risked
our lives, stigma and our livelihood to work here, the least they can
do is to pay us as of when due.
" They were always delaying paying us. But if they are going to shut
down, they should pay us for what we tirelessly worked for. If not,
nobody will answer or volunteer when next they call."
Calls and text messages sent to the Commissioner for Heath, Dr. Jide
Idris, were not answered.
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