OAUTHC Offers 390 Disengaged Staff Fresh Appointments

…puts in place policy to check sexual harassment, recovers N30m from staff who relocated abroad

The Federal Government has offered fresh appointments to three hundred and ninety out of the over two thousand persons disengaged from the service of Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex Ile-Ife in December 2023.

The Hospital had witnessed disruption of activities for days by the disengaged staff, blaming their action on the Chief Medical Director, Professor John Okeniyi.

For the past one year, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex, Ile-Ife has faced a lot of challenges.

One of the challenges was the series of protests by the over two thousand persons who were given letters of employment into various cadres in the Hospital in 2022 allegedly without necessary procedures and were later disengaged.

At an engagement meeting held in the Hospital, the Chief Medical Director, Prof. John Okeniyi said the affected persons have been fully employed in compliance with necessary regulations.

On reported cases of sexual harassment been in the hospital, the CMD warned that the leadership would not tolerate sex exploitation of anybody.

He said a sexual harassment policy had been put in place to check perpetrators.

The CMD said, “Do unto others what you would want them to do to you, I would not want anybody to harass my wife and I must not harassing other people’s wives.

“The laws are clear, we have brought it to the fore on the notice of the people, that they shall not sexually harass, so ignorance can no longer be a defence, now you all know and if anybody does that the next step is deterrence by punishment.

He disclosed that he would not sweep any case of sexual harassment under the carpet adding that he will expose any staff involved to the public.

“There will be a Hall of Shame on the internet for such a person for people to see it. And if you feel that you can not control your libido despite the law then prosecution will follow.

“Apart from that I will remove all beds from sites and duty posts where they are not needed. Lead us not into temptation. There is no need of bed in the cashier department, anybody who is on shift does not need a bed, why are we putting beds where they are not necessary, we are only creating the medium.

“I have empowered the Servicom for people to come out to say something about sexual harassment. People are groaning from sexual harassment, now they should know that there is a listening ear and action will be taken.”

He continued “Most of the harassment happens because some people value their promotion and career beyond their sanctity as women and men, then they pun themselves for their career, now they know that if they like they should give themselves to somebody, and it will not count until their due promotion, because it will be based on merit. I wrote policy on sexual harassment which has been domesticated into OAUTHC, it will be made available soon.”

Speaking about money retrieved by the management from those staff who relocated out of the country, he said over N30 million had been recovered.

His words “Relocation of staff to other countries is not exclusive to OAUTH. Not everybody will relocate and we have to fix this place so that one day those people will come back…not all japa are bad, some of those that relocated gave us solar, some came back teaching, a woman donated hostels for our nursing students, so it is not all bad.

“Some have gone in deceitful ways; you take a leave of absence with or without pay, you go, you are holding the slot here from being filled by a willing Nigerian to take the job.

“You did not resign and you didn’t take the leave appropriately, others are deliberately absent without leave in instances, some of them overstayed the leave, went abroad, are earning money there, and some will claim it is Leave to study but when they travel they did not even do that thing they went to study.

“Then the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria said no! This things should not be the case no matter what, all of such persons once we identify them, we challenge them, and they either return, pay back or ask to leave.”

He added that, “We have been able to retrieve over N30million from people. They have been paying back now there is room for one-on-one employment which we will explore to tackle the exodus of medical personnel from this hospital.”

While giving situational reports of activities to mark his one year in office also disclosed that N30million has been retrieved from staff members of the hospital who relocated abroad and still drawing salary from the organisation.