A Nigerian doctor has stirred significant outrage on social media after claiming that he and seven other house officers at the Nigerian Navy Reference Hospital in Calabar worked for 290 days without receiving pay.
In a viral video circulating online, the doctor, named as Dr. Innosent, said that eight house officers employed by the Ministry of Defence had gone unpaid for more than nine months while carrying out their medical duties.
According to him, the impacted doctors are among the 15 house officers now employed at the hospital, where they are said to play an important role in patient care due to a dearth of resident doctors.
“Hello, good day. My name is Dr. Innosent and today is day 290 of working as a house officer without pay. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. Not just myself, but a few of my colleagues as well. Eight in total,” he said.
The doctor stated that house officers at the facility manage the General Out-Patient Department (GOPD), care for patients in the Accident and Emergency unit, help during surgeries, and act as a liaison between patients and consultants.
He stated that the workload is especially onerous because the hospital has very few resident doctors, necessitating house officers to assume considerable responsibilities.
“We do a lot of work here. We almost literally run this place. We have gone 290 days without pay,” he stated.
Dr. Innosent also claimed that, while they work at the Nigerian Navy Reference Hospital, they are employed by the Ministry of Defence, which he claims is responsible for processing their salaries.
According to him, multiple attempts to fix the situation through the proper channels have generated no substantive results.
“All our efforts to try and resolve this by calling Abuja have been to no avail. Nobody is giving us anything substantial. Our contact person at the Ministry of Defence doesn’t seem to know when they will pay us,” he said.
He called the protracted payment delay as unfair and emotionally taxing, saying that the impacted doctors continue to work long hours, including weekends, without being paid.
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