Ebola front-line workers in Congo strike over unpaid wages as outbreak spreads

The healthcare workers at the epicentre of Congo’s Ebola outbreak are walking off their jobs to protest delays in their payments, threatening efforts to slow the outbreak that officials said continues to spread faster than the response.

In Ituri province, the hardest hit among the three provinces in eastern Congo affected by the outbreak, some of the health professionals and other front-line workers said that they’ve not been paid their wages and bonuses since the outbreak was declared on May 15. They also alleged they were working with limited gear and were being treated unfairly by authorities as well as response teams.

“Since the Ebola virus disease outbreak was declared, we’ve been demanding payment for our work,” Dr Biensi Kano, a member of the epidemiological surveillance committee in Ituri’s capital, Bunia, told The Associated Press.

The latest Government data shows 1,708 recorded cases, including 580 deaths, and that the first month of this Ebola outbreak was already the worst on record, health authorities said. The strike comes at the start of enrollment for clinical trials for the treatment of the Bundibugyo virus that is responsible for this outbreak.

The World Health Organisation representative in Congo, Dr Anne Ancia, said Tuesday that the virus continues to spread, fuelled by population movements and insecurity, while some treatment centres are at near-full capacity. The non-payment of benefits “exposes us and our families to significant socio-economic difficulties and seriously undermines our living conditions,” said Kano.  In an official notice to national and provincial authorities over the weekend, front-line workers in Ituri threatened to strike if the wages were not paid in 24 hours. By Tuesday, some had already stopped working, although no official strike has been declared.

The aggrieved front-line workers also include safety and security teams, those that often embark on community outreach as well as those burying patients who died from Ebola.

Congo’s Government did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the situation. Officials in Ituri, however, said they’ve met with the workers and their concerns are being addressed. “The fact that Bunia airport is closed is hampering the very implementation of the response, particularly certain aspects of the flow of funds. This is one of the reasons that may account for the delay in payment,” Akilimali Pierre, incident manager at Congo’s National Institute of Public Health, told The Associated Press. Some of the workers organised a protest Monday outside the Rwampara Ebola treatment centre.