THAT PEACE MAY RETURN TO THE FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTRE OWERRI

The Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Owerri was established by the Federal Medical Government as a tertiary health institution to serve the good people of Imo State. Its structure and organization is clearly spelt out in the law establishing the institution as a Parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Health. A management board, approved by the President on the recommendation of the Minister of Health, oversees the operations of the institution.

For the past two years, FMC Owerri has unfortunately been in the news for the wrong reasons, principally because the institution’s labour union has constituted itself into an authority that decides who gets appointed or removed as the medical director. The labour union has held the institution to ransom by insisting on the removal of Dr. (Mrs.) Angela Uwakwem as the medical director on grounds of mismanagement and embezzlement. The institution remained closed for several months by the labour Union which mounted a campaign of calumny against Dr. Angela Uwakwem. In order to properly investigate the allegations, the Minister of Health ordered the medical director to proceed on indefinite leave while a ministerial fact-finding committee was constituted.

After careful investigation, the Committee found no evidence of misconduct against Dr. Uwakwem and consequently recommended her recall. However, the labour union stuck to its gun and insisted that Dr. Angela Uwakwe must not return and went on to physically prevent her return by blocking the entrance to the institution. This is clearly an act of lawlessness which must be condemned by all well meaning Nigerians. If Union was not satisfied with the findings and recommendations of the ministerial fact-finding committee, the lawful thing to do is to seek redress in court by way of a restraining order and not to take the law into their hands.

The labour union knows and clearly understands that the appointment of a medical director for the institution is the prerogative of the President and the appointee enjoys a four-year tenure which can only be terminated by a presidential directive had the ministerial committee established any wrong doing on her part. We advise the labour leaders not to allow themselves to be used to serve the selfish interest of a corrupt cabal in the institution. They should instead, restrict themselves to the traditional roles of labour unions, that is, the safety and welfare of its members instead of dabbling into the politics of who gets appointed or removed as the institution’s medical director.

Accordingly, may we remind the Union that no law, custom, practice or regulation gives it the right or authority to decide who should be appointed or removed as the Medical Director of FMC, Owerri. Any employee who feels that he or she is so aggrieved and cannot stomach the recall of Dr. Angela Uwakwem as medical director should resign and seek employment somewhere else. The insistence by the Union that she could be transferred to head another institution is clearly misplaced because, the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri is a quasi-autonomous institution with a management board and her appointment and tenure is specific to FMC, Owerri, no more, no less.

We must in all these, commend Dr. Angela Uwakwem for the maturity she has shown in the face of all provocation by the labour union which is being sponsored by a corrupt cabal in the institution. She has been harassed, attacked, humiliated and shot at all because she insisted that the institution must be run in an orderly, corrupt-free manner and that things must be done in the right way.