Abia Govt Clarifies The Confusion Surrounding Alleged Sack Of Doctors, Enyimba FC Staff | READ DETAILS

The Abia State government has described as fake news, reports that it has sacked all doctors under the state Ministry of Health including staff of Enyimba Football Club.

A memo which circulated on Monday, purportedly signed by Dr. Hemuka Rock Baile, the Director in Charge of the Abia state ministry of health directed all doctors to “re-apply expressing their interest on working with the ministry, indicating their willingness to work under the ministry of health Umuahia and Hospital Management Board (HMB)”.

Likewise, a memo purportedly signed by the Sporting Director Enyimba FC (without a name) ordered management, staff and technical crew members of the club to re-apply for the positions with immediate effect.

Reacting to the alleged sack respectively, the state government through Mr Ferdinand Ekeoma, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to Governor Alex Otti noted that the reports are fake news peddled by oppositions in the state.

He explained that the Ministry of Health having discovered some irregularities in the system, collectively resolved with all personnel to carry out a revalidation exercise to fish out ghost workers in the health ministry.

The governor’s aide also noted that the purported sack of Enyimba FC staff “was another dubious strategy aimed at creating confusion and disaffection, all in a bid to express hate and anger against the government for having the courage to change the old order of destruction that enriched a tiny few and impoverished the innocent majority.”

The release titled; “FAKE NEWS ALERT: NO ABIA DOCTOR WAS SACKED BY GOVERNMENT” read;

The public should kindly disregard the Fake news being peddled by the opposition in the state that Doctors in the Abia State Ministry of Health have been sacked and asked to reapply.

As one of the measures to sanitize the Abia Health Sector and ensure the authentication of the identities and up-to-date competence of those still working in the Ministry, especially after investigation showed that some persons who had since left the Ministry still have their names feature in the system, the Ministry met with all personnel and collectively agreed to carry out a Revalidation Exercise, a decision that was generally applauded and accepted. The exercise has been going on smoothly.

Avoidable loss of innocent lives is one of the greatest consequences of playing bad politics with the health of the people; the present government will not toe that path, no matter the amount of blackmail and disinformation being deployed to derail the government and halt the exercise.

The same people circulating the Fake News of alleged sack of Doctors have carried it over to Enyimba Football Club Aba through the issuance of a Fake release asking people to reapply for their previous jobs in Enyimba.

The release credited to an unnamed Sporting Director was another dubious strategy aimed at creating confusion and disaffection, all in a bid to express hate and anger against the government for having the courage to change the old order of destruction that enriched a tiny few and impoverished the innocent majority.

The public should disregard the Fake report and other similar Fake reports and continue to throw their weight behind the Alex Otti led-government government as it strives to restore sanity in critical sectors of the state.

On her own part, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Ngozi Okoronkwo says no Doctor under the payroll of the Abia State was sacked by the administration of governor Alex Otti, adding that the information of ongoing redeployment in the Ministry was either twisted or misrepresented.

She said that on assumption of office as the Commissioner, she observed that many of the Doctors under the employment of the Ministry were either floating or have never rendered any service since their employment date, which resulted to the management of the Ministry taken a decision of re-deploying the Doctors to General Hospitals through the Hospitals Management Board for effective service delivery, since it is the intention of the State Governor, Dr. Alex Otti to make the hospitals functional.

“We noticed that some doctors are in the Ministry receiving salaries every month without service delivery to any hospital or clinic which was the intention of the government for employing them. After several meetings with their Unions, we decided to re-deploy some of them to where there services will be required”.

She asked the public to ignore mischief makers and rumour mongers, as no doctor genuinely employed by the Abia State Government has been sacked or relieved of his duty since the assumption of office of Dr. Alex Otti and described the rumour as untrue and unfounded.

She advised the Doctors and members of the general public to continue supporting the initiatives of Dr. Alex Otti’s administration which is prioritizing adequate healthcare delivery in the State.

While speaking on Saturday during the flag off of the free medical services of the Ministry at Aba General Hospital, the Health Commissioner pointed that the era of owing health workers their entitlements was long gone as the Governor has shown prompt payments of salaries and allowances of the workers including backlogs of salaries.

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