THE federal government owes the doctor who collapsed after working for 72 hours at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) three months’ salary arrears, The ICIR has found.

Venatus Okorie is a houseman or house officer, meaning a doctor who is training while working in a hospital, according to Encyclopedia. His January to March salaries have been withheld due to the feud between Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) and chief medical directors (CMDs) of tertiary health institutions in Nigeria.

In an interview with The ICIR, Okorie said he had not been paid a dime as emolument since January 1, 2021 by the government.

He told The ICIR that he spent two weeks at the hospital after collapsing in February, 2021. His relations bore the cost of his drugs while the hospital footed his medical bill during the treatment.

Asked why he had continued to work despite his experience over the past weeks, Okorie said he had no choice.

“Do I have a choice? I have to keep working because I don’t have another work. Time is going. I cannot waste time anymore,” he said.

Okorie works for a minimum of 14 hours daily because the UPTH is understaffed. He is not entitled to any off-day throughout the one year period that his programme will run.

“Doctors don’t have number of working hours. We keep doing it as the work keeps coming. As you can see me now, I am in the hospital working,” he told our reporter.


Housemanship enables the interns to acquire more practical knowledge by working in hospitals and getting paid. The housemanship programme is required to enable the doctors to participate in the compulsory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme. Experience garnered during the housemanship helps the practitioners to excel in places of their primary assignment.

Other doctors tell their stories

Apart from Okorie, Michael Brens is also having his housemanship at the UPTH. Unlike Okorie, he has been paid the three months’ arrears by the government, but still faces problems.

“It’s hectic. Going to work without being paid is something else. It’s strenuous,” he said while speaking with The ICIR in a telephone interview.

He said if the house officers refused to work because they were not paid, they would get punished.

Leadership of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) came to assist house officers at the hospital by giving them N30,000 each when things were very hard for them. According to Brens, house officers were supposed to work for 12 hours per day for the whole year of their housemanship, but they often worked for more hours.

“We come to work by 8 ‘0 clock in the morning. We are supposed to close to 8 ‘0 clock in the evening, but because of shortage of manpower, we end up leaving by 10 ‘o clock or 11pm. That should be more than 13 or 14 hours. House officers don’t do off, we work for the whole day,” the doctor revealed.

Meanwhile, a resident doctor at the UPTH Onyiye Elekwa claimed she was owed six months’ salaries.

“I have not been paid. None of the resident doctors in any centre has been paid this year, but house officers in some centres have been paid.

“I have worked for 10 months and I have earned for only four months. Initially, we were supposed to be earning via the GIFMIS platform, but when we came in, the hospital was having some issues. They did not pay us for the first three months,” she said.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/exclusive-collapsed-doctor-okorie-owed-three-months-salary-arrears/

I see, I saw....... I see many more faintings for him if he doesn't find way to leave this country....

So I have seen and So shall it be.

And yet some people Envy doctors not knowing what those Doctors are passing through.