if the current disagreement between the management of the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Owerri and the staff is not resolved peacefully and urgently too, the health and lives of Imo people will be heading for the rocks, as the resultant effect will be nothing less than mass death in the state.
For sometime now, strike has become part and parcel of the activities of the staffers of the FMC Owerri, as no full year has passed in the federal government establishment without any of the staff Union in the FMC embarking of strike for alleged mismanagement, harsh working condition or poor worker welfare packages among other reasons.
In the case of the current feud some affected staff Union are threatening fire and brimestone over the newly introduced Private partnership project (PPP) in the Medical Centre. Both the management and the affected Unions have been in the news with claims and counter claims of sabotage.
Defending the PPP, the Medical Director (MD) of FMC Owerri Dr (Mr) Angela Uwakwem, explained that the whole arrangement is for the interest of both the management, staffers and general public (Patients) as it will ensure efficiency and effective service delivery, maintenance and job security.
However, the Unions have continued to oppose the gesture alleging that it will not only encourage harsh workers welfare but will also result to retrenchment of the workers. They also submitted that cost of medical services will escalate drastically, as private investment anywhere in the world is primarily profit oriented.
According to comrade Ezeugo Clifford leader of Allied Medical workers, Ejiogu IK President Laboratory Technologists Union, the arrangement will cause mass death in the state due the inability of the general public to meet up with the resulted high cost of medical service in the medical centre, as it has remained the only medical services alternative in the state in recent time.
The unionists quoted the MD, Dr Uwakwem in a congress as saying that if she is to manage any of the department in FMC as a private partner that she will end up reducing the staff strength in quote “If am to run the medical Lab I will only make use of 20 out of 56 medical Lab workers”. This statement they argued is a true confusion made unconsciously.
