FMC Abeokuta Refutes IIlegal Recruitment, Promotion Exercise Claim

ABEOKUTA - The Board of Management of Federal Medical Centre, Idi-Aba, Abeokuta has debunked a newspaper report which accused the Centre of illegal promotion and recruitment of workforce.

The Daily Times Newspaper in   its 17th February, 2022 edition  had alleged that the Centre committed an infraction in its December 2021 /January, 2022 promotion exercise and illegal recruitment of personnel.

Reacting,  however , the Board  explained that contrary to the newspaper report on illegal promotion, the Centre simply conducted a placement exercise in line with a directive from the  IPPIS where staff salaries are being paid.

Similarly, the Board absolved the Centre of complicity in any recruitment exercise explaining that what the Centre did was migration and not employment.

The migration exercise, which the Board stated was successfully carried out in the Centre by IPPIS was an exercise of necessity to sustain health care delivery services in the Centre.

According to the Board in a release signed by the Centre's Head of Public Relations, Segun Orisajo said as at the time the migration exercise was conducted, a good number of members of staff had contracted covid-19 and had to self isolate.

Orisajo explained that in the face of depletion of the workforce and in adherence to a directive by the Federal Ministry of Health not to turn back any patient, the most reasonable option left for the Centre was to migrate personnel, an action which  the Board said must not be misconstrued for employment.

"The Board observed with regret that "the concerned" staff of the Centre who were alleged to have being behind the petition were fictitious and non-existing.

"The Board said it sounded  illogical and irreconcilable to have argued that those who had benefited from a promotion exercise could still be the ones who would later turn round to be the "concerned staff" who authored the petition against themselves.

The Board noted that a similar petition was issued out  last year which was said to have been written by one Sunday Anisere who purportedly claimed to be a "concerned staff "of Federal Medical Centre Idi-Aba Abeokuta, in which investigations showed was not a staff in the Centre as there was no name in the hospital nominal roll Sunday Anisere.

"The Board, therefore, considered the latest Daily Times report as a sponsored publication and the handiwork of disgruntled elements who are desperate in their mischievous agenda to fan the embers of disharmony, disaffection, and discord in the Centre.

"However unknown to such elements, the Board, the  Hospital Management  Committee, the Unions and indeed the entire hospital community is more united now more than ever before working as a united family.

"The Board assured the users of the Centre of quality transparent and timely delivery of medical and health care services."