Djoungolo-Yaounde Hospital Staff Resume Work

A new management board of the hospital has been appointed to address the salary issues of workers.

Medical personnel at the Eglise Presbytérienne Camerounaise (EPC) hospital at the Djoungolo neighbourhood in Yaounde recently blocked the administrator of the hospital from entering his office while carrying out a sit-in strike in front of various wards in the hospital requesting for better salaries and working conditions.

Patients who visited the hospital at the beginning of this week could not receive any medical attention from the disgruntled workers. To address the salary situation, the authorities of the Eglise Presbytérienne Camerounaise, Yaounde Presbytery have immediately changed the management of the Djoungolo Hospital while appointing Pastor Virgile Obome Koulou as the new President of the Management Board. Pastor Virgile Koulou is charged with examining what is not going right in the management of the hospital while seeking ways to resolve the problems which seem to persist.

Pastor Virgile Koulou told Cameroon Tribune that presently at the hospital, there is abuse of confidence between workers and the management of the hospital. Workers complain that for about six months, their salaries are paid at a low rate and the management of the hospital is not transparent. The newly appointed President of the Management Board of the hospital said workers are being paid only 28 per cent of their salaries instead of 100 per cent. He noted that this was a decision taken by the former management of the hospital and imposed on the workers.

With instructions from the Board of Directors of the hospital, yesterday February 28, Pastor Virgile Obome Koulou had invited some of the heads of the EPC Presbytery, who could be seen at the hospital premises taking stock of the actual situation while looking for means to solve the problems. The Presbytery authorities confirmed that the hospital which used to be a referral hospital in Yaounde is in a dilapidating state with most equipment in a decrepit state. Very few drugs could be seen in the hospital pharmacy while the premises are untidy. Although calm has returned to the hospital and the workers back to work, Pastor Virgile Obome Koulou said while waiting for the appointment of members of a new management board of the hospital they need to address the salary situation of staff in the hospital.