Linden Hospital staff vows prolonged sit-in

Feb 06, 2011 News

Staff of the Linden Hospital complex have vowed to continue their sit-in to protest several issues affecting them, especially the decision by the administration to make gratuity payments in March and September effective this year, on the advice of the Ministry of Health.
According to the peeved workers, who commenced a go slow last week and subsequently proceeded to sit-in, they are supposed to receive their gratuity in February and August. The new mandate is based on a circular from 2006, which management has only now sought to put into effect.
The staff also highlighted several other issues affecting them, including the deducting of monies for maternity and sick leave from their gratuity payments, even though those monies are deducted from their salaries.
They contended that such absences are authorized, and it is therefore unfair to them to have to pay twice for the same ‘offence’.
Inadequate time- off to upgrade themselves was another cause for concern among the staff.
According to them the present five hours off per week is grossly inadequate for them to pursue any course of study at the University of Guyana or other academic institution.
“They are telling us, that we have to do upgrades every two years, but in order for us to do upgrades we have to get release. This is contradictory, because they want us to go and elevate ourselves, but yet they are not giving us the time.
“Five hours is nothing, because one day at UG would probably take five hours, so what’s going to happen to the rest of the days?
“That means they’ll either take it out of your leave, or they’ll take it out of your money, which they normally do.”
The other alternate would be for them to resign, in order to facilitate their ‘upgrades’ which they said was mandatory for contracts’ renewal and for receipt of licenses to practice, according to the nurses.’
Every two years the nurses have to show what they did for the period to upgrade themselves.
One nurse declared, “I would like to speak with Dr (Leslie) Ramsammy, because I want to ask him, how can you advocate breastfeeding for mothers who are nurses, or other hospital staff?
“How can you tell them to strictly breastfeed for six months- you get three months’ annual leave, and here it is your gratuity which is your pension, (because we don’t get pension at the end when we reach retirement age)- which should not be troubled- you taking it out.
“The three months is omitted. They only giving you three months, because every six months you get the gratuity. In other words you only getting three months for the first six- month period. That is totally unfair; that is my pension. So we can’t get pregnant, or we can’t get sick, or we won’t get full gratuity. We don’t even get time off to take care of our families, when they are ill.”
“These are some of the things we are faced with. We working like real donkeys and they treating we like junkies!”
All management is concerned about, is that when you come to work, their work is done, they said. “Patient is priority, but what about us the caregivers-we are giving care, but who cares for us?”
The case of a sister who was ill and so could not go to work was also highlighted.
According to reports the woman was called and told that she cannot receive her gratuity, even though she taught her students at her home during the period of her illness, and got 100 per cent passes.
This issue was reportedly raised with management.
Meanwhile, Guyana Public Service Union Representative, Maurice Butters, said that the decision to sit-in was taken to protest a decision by management on advice from the Ministry of Health which mandated that gratuity payments to staff be made at six-month intervals, namely March and September, effective from this year.
“One time they are telling us that we are not traditional public servants and then they bringing these circulars from the public service for us to adhere to,” Butters said.
He added that the GPSU had written to the Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Hydar Ally, and a meeting was held in 2010, where it was agreed that the ministry would have gotten a clear directive based on an agreement with the union, as to what would be the future for gratuity payments.
He said that the Ministry had promised to make contact with the union on the way forward,so that the workers could have been
(Continued on page 49)

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Linden Hospital staff vows prolonged sit-in

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