Volunteers Of Ebola Centre In Lagos Demand Unpaid Allowances

 Volunteers who worked at the Ebola Treatment centre in Lagos claim that the Federal and the Lagos State governments are shutting down the centre without paying any allowances.

According to the Punch, some volunteers who spoke with a correspondent said they had yet to receive payment for the month of September.
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.

”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,” the health worker said.
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.
“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,” she said.
At the time of this report, the Commissioner for Heath, Dr. Jide Idris, didn’t answer calls and text messages.
A concerned worker, who risked his life fighting the deadly disease, also wrote to Naij.com on Independence Day, saying that the Ebola response team were send away without appropriate settlement.

According to the nurse, doctors are paid N50,000 per shift, while nurses are paid N40,000.