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Passage of whistleblower legislation highlights plight of transferred nurse
PPP MP, Harry Gill
Thursday’s passage of the Protected Disclosures Bill has raised the issue about the alleged retaliatory treatment meted out to persons who previously sought to blow the lid on wrongdoing and corrupt practices.
The bill is designed to combat corruption and other transgressions by encouraging and facilitating disclosures of improper conduct in the public and private sectors.
People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Member of Parliament, Harry Gill said the bill could easily have been named after a young professional.
It was Nurse Sherilyn Marks who, over the course of several months, was tasked with administering injections to a coalition (APNU+Alliance For Change) Councillor on the Region Five Democratic Council (RDC).
The Councillor subsequently resigned her post on the RDC.
After realising that the APNU-aligned Councillor was receiving doses of Pethidine, more frequent than required, the nurse lodged a complaint with health authorities, both at the level of Central Government, and the regional department.
After no action was taken, Marks followed up with another correspondence in December 2016. Her persistence to have the issue addressed was based on the fear of being held liable for not administering the doses as prescribed by the Narcotic Drug and Psychotropic Substance (Control) Act of Guyana.
Soon enough, 2016 turned to 2017 and Marks’s concerns were still not addressed. Having exhausted all other avenues, Marks decided to highlight her plight via a letter to the press.
After the piece she penned was published, the young woman received a letter from the Regional Health Office, saying that she was being transferred from the Fort Wellington Hospital to the Bath/Experiment Health Centre.
The letter sought to inform Marks that her transfer was done “in an effort to establish good vaccination coverage within this catchment area.”
Marks had complained that she had no one backing her.
“This is the true story of a whistleblower who was suspended, harassed, intimidated, victimised, transferred against her will, and made to suffer injury in relation to her employment, family life and professional career,” said Gill.
He stated that the public official’s close affiliation with the APNU+AFC government and a powerful political party, intimidated doctors to risk their professional careers writing illegal prescriptions for years, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
“In reprisal, the heroic nurse was treated like the villain. She was transferred with immediate effect to a nearby Health Centre, and her personal file was sent to the Department of Public Service for disciplinary action to be taken, on the basis that she breached public service rules when she complained about the abuse of medication by the public official,” Gill noted.
He stated that the nurse is still under investigation, but had it not been for the vigilance of the media, there is no doubt she would have been fired a long time ago.
“If the Minister of Public Health truly believes that this Bill, even as written, is necessary to protect whistleblowers who risk being victimized by reporting corruption, wrongdoing and improper conduct by those we place in public trust, then the Minister is obligated by her own conviction, to acknowledge the wrong that was done to this nurse, and reinstate her to the position she held before at the Hospital in Region 5,” Gill stated.
Gill stated that unless Ministers of Government and senior public officials are made to suffer the consequences of their inaction to protect a whistleblower, the bill would be meaningless.
Among the menu of measures included in the Bill to protect whistleblowers is the establishment of the Protected Disclosures Commission to receive, investigate or otherwise deal with disclosures of improper conduct, and to provide for other related matters.
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