Hospital management are holding staff to ransom – say nurses

Jul 14, 2011 News

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Staff of the Linden Hospital Complex, are convinced that they are being held hostage by management, ever since the last industrial action they took to demand their gratuity payments.
According to them, management has mandated that no payment would be done for overtime worked by staff, even though they are scheduled to work overtime.
The operating theatre staff is expected to respond to emergencies at all times, it was reported, but yet when they work they are told that there would be no payment for the time worked.
Workers are also concerned that the five percent increase on salaries for 2010, is not applicable to overtime, which means that they would not receive retroactive payments on their overtime for 2011.
It was pointed out that the Ministry of Health had indicated that the intention is that overtime should be somewhat curtailed, but that it cannot be entirely eliminated, since in a hospital scenario that would not be possible.
Concerns were also raised that even though gratuity is paid in lieu of pension, workers are being told after 15 years that gratuity would not be paid for either sick leave or maternity leave.
Employees are even more concerned that if they proceed on extended sick leave for more than a month, they lose three months of gratuity, and if a female employee proceeds on maternity leave and it starts in the first three months, and ends in the last three, she loses her gratuity for the entire six months.
Employees are paid gratuity every six months, in February and in August of every year, after evaluations are done.
The concerned workers have called this decision by management, totally unjust.
And the issue of a senior nursing tutor of the Charles Rosa School of Nursing, who taught her students at home during a period of extended sick leave and was able to secure 100 per cent passes, was again highlighted. The tutor is being denied her gratuity, even though she was working from home during the period of sick leave, it was reported.
In an invited comment regional representative for the Guyana Public Service Union Maurice butters described the denial of the tutor’s gratuity as totally uncaring and inconsiderate of the Hospital management.
Want change.
Employees of the Linden Hospital Complex are crying out for a change in the attitude of Management, and are requesting intervention from the Ministry of Health.
But some staff members are convinced that Management is being encouraged by the Ministry to put pressure on them to keep them in line, subsequent to the last industrial action.
However workers said that they will not be intimidated by these tactics, and that they will call another strike, if the Ministry does not intervene to rectify the current atrocities, they have to ‘put up with.’
It was pointed out that recently a staff member was taken by her supervisor to the Chief Medical Officer, to have her services terminated on the grounds that she was medically unfit because she complained of feeling unwell.
Corruption exists
The hospital staff has also said that they suspect that corruption exists at the Linden Hospital Complex.
Every month nurses complain about receiving ‘short’ salary; and it was indicated that when enquiries are made, they are told that monies are deducted for absent days, even when the nurses are not absent.
There were also claims that names of nurses, who would have left the hospital institution for one reason or another, still appear on the pay sheets.
This issue was highlighted during the last industrial action. Subsequently, nurses were made to sign on ‘full scalp sheet’ of paper, when they went to uplift their pay slips.
There are also reports that tenders are not sent out for supplies for the hospital, and that some senior personnel are suppliers of one commodity or other to the institution.
Many other atrocities are rampant at the hospital according to reports, with the result that the morale and performance of employees are affected.
Hospital Laboratory
Staff often cannot work in the hospital laboratory because of a ‘chemical reaction’ that causes a fume to circulate. This has been happening since December 2010, according to reports.
The ‘reaction’ results in the burning of the eyes and nose and whenever this happens No work can be carried out in the hospital laboratory.
Repeated complaints were made, but to date, after six months, Management is yet to investigate or determine the source of the fumes, employees complained.
Calls are being made for management to close the laboratory for at least three days, to investigate the origin of the fumes and have same corrected immediately.
Chief Executive Officer of the Linden Hospital, Gordon Gumbs, has meanwhile said that a series of investigations had to be carried out to determine the cause of the problem. That took some time, he said, and the conclusion was that the source of the fumes might be a chemical that was used to spray the evaporator coils in the airhandlers, which form part of the system that generates cool air.
The chemical spray was used to prevent the accumulation of dust on the evaporator coils, Gumbs said, adding that the spraying has been discontinued about two weeks now and that the situation is presently being monitored.
The issue of the short salaries could only be addressed centrally, Gumbs said, as salaries are not set at the Linden Hospital Complex, but at the Public Service Ministry in Georgetown.
And as regards the supplying of commodities by senior personnel, Gumbs pointed out that this was the exception and not the rule, and has only happened on a few occasions, when certain supplies could not be procured elsewhere.
Meanwhile the latest word regards the laboratory is that the fumes started ‘to act up’ yesterday. Informed sources said that if the matter is not addressed urgently, the laboratory would be shut down.

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