Protesting GPH workers with placards detailing their concerns
September 26 ,2020
-Public Service Minister calls for formal complaints as strike threatened
Scores of Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) workers yesterday joined their counterparts from the West Demerara Regional Hospital (WRDH) and the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) by staging a protest to demand salary increases and better working conditions for all frontline workers.
The workers, who took to the streets outside of the hospital with placards in hand, also threatened to continue protesting and, if necessary, strike, until their concerns are addressed. “All we want is for you to be behind us and these issues have to be resolved and not only for the nurses, for all frontline workers. I have information that a number of health care workers are facing a situation where they are at high-risk. Some of them have been sent home to quarantine and we have discovered that the patients that they were nursing were COVID-19 positive, so when they are saying that a certain set of people are frontline workers. That is nonsense! Everybody here is a frontline worker!” a representative of the protestors said.
“In some way or another, all employees here gotta come in contact with somebody. People who don’t need assistance don’t come here and it is our duty to help them. We want to help them. We do not get paid for the amount of work we doing. When somebody have to go under quarantine for coming into contact with a patient or someone tests positive and the majority of staff have to go into quarantine, is we ga work double shifts and so in all them wards because they can’t just go to the streets and pull somebody and tell them to work. No! We have to deal with the pressure and what we getting? Chicken feed money?” a nurse added.
In response, Minister of Public Service Sonia Parag last evening called on protesting workers to file official complaints about their grievances in keeping with the law. The Department of Public Information (DPI) reported Parag as saying that an official filing would see the matter progress toward discussions with the relevant sectors, especially since
her initial engagements with the Chief Labour Officer Charles Ogle revealed that no formal request has been made. As a result, she urged the workers “to return to work and give that service to Guyanese and take the necessary steps provided by the laws to reach a stage of discussion.”
On Wednesday, LHC’s nurses took to the streets of Linden after they were not paid on the given pay-day and they voiced their concerns about inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE) at the hospital. They also requested a risk allowance. During the latter part of that day, they spoke to the Regional Health Officer (RHO), who assured them that their concerns will be addressed while later that night, Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony said that $150 million was set aside in the budget for risk allowance for healthcare workers.
However, on Thursday, LHC workers staged another protest demanding a salary increase and better working conditions. On the same day, staff from the WDRH also held a protest along the Vreed-en-Hoop public road while citing similar issues and complaining that staff who have contracted COVID-19 and are asymptomatic are still be forced to work. The claim that COVID-19 positive staff were forced to work was denied by Ministry of Health officials.
In addition, the staff of WDRH also demanded 50% increases for all staff members who work at the hospital, while noting that even if they are not putting themselves directly at risk, they are still at risk by going to work every day and coming in contact with many patients.
These were among the issues raised by the GPH staffer yesterday.
They demanded a 50% increase on their salaries, while saying that when calculated, the risk allowance promised by the government doesn’t amount to much and cannot compensate for the “terrible” conditions they are forced to work under at this time. They also said that they are being overworked and the meagre salary they are receiving can no longer be accepted.
“Workers must stand up for their rights,” a union representative said, while adding that the public service union is in full support of the protest actions.
The workers also claimed that the frontline workers who have tested positive for COVID-19 are not receiving any assistance from the government and are forced to fend for themselves and their families during their ensuing isolation.
According to a nurse, a much bigger protest will be held on Monday. “The union is behind us and we will intensify our actions. For too long we have been in the back burner and have taken what they have given but now we will be firm another added.
Another representative of the union said that these demonstrations are not political. He said it is for health care workers’ advancement and it is not the first time healthcare workers have been fighting for better.
“We always being met with resistance so this is the time that we gotta move forward. They talking about oil, they talking about this billion barrel of oil and we gotta get a part of that billion barrel of oil,” he said.
Meanwhile, staff of the WDRH also returned to protest at the Vreed-en-Hoop public road. They also said that they will continue until negotiations have begun. Staff of the Leonora Cottage Hospital also protested along the Leonora Public Road.