Bor Hospital Workers Resume Work After Strike
Bor Civil Hospital staff have resumed work following a strike which paralysed services at the hospital. 28 April 2013 Patients at Bor hospital during the strike last week. [Gurtong | File] By Jacob Achiek Jok BOR, 27 April 2013 [Gurtong] – The workers union together with traders Union, Finance and some representative from special board held the meeting on how they will resolve outstanding issues with the workers positively. The state Health and Environment Minister Jehan Machak Deng said that she needs to take the hospitals staff concerns to the council of ministers so that they can come up with resolution on how they will improve their incomes. Jehan was speaking to Gurtong while in Juba for a workshop also said that hospital staff salaries and their grades had not been promoted or upgraded for many years. She said that once the economy of the country and the state is to improve, they can look into their concerns on overtimes and that all the workers have accepted what was told to them and they will be able to improve their income. She said that finances will be able to allocate overtime pay for the workers during the holiday and weekend because most of them have been given some money previously. She said that other incentives and benefit are going to be in the upcoming budget. “And it is true that the whole country doesn’t have cash, not just our Jonglei state alone which has no cash,” she said. Mechak said that promotion is the process in government regulations and with austerity measure they have been prohibited not to promote anyone in the ministry by the national government. She said that promotion is through the qualification process of which the ministry of Public Services should approve and then take to council of ministers for recommendation. The minister urges her staff to commit their efforts by developing their morals on their duties. “Let’s focus about how we can improve the services of our people and to serve our nation because all of us now are all public servants and we are serving in nation building and our reward will come,” Jehan said. The In charge of IPD2 Ward, Daniel Ayuaal has said that they have come back for work after they were given seven days by state government authorities to solve their case. The Chairperson of the Trade Union, Ujullu OJu Ujullu has said that state ministry of health has agreed to pay one month incentive to the workers if the ministry of finance gets. He said through the request given to workers who went on strike last week by the Workers and Traders Union, the workers who went on strike resumed their normal duties effectively. One of the workers said that Workers Union and Traders Union requested them to continue with their work so that their case will be solved between them and the ministry and workers have all agree to continue operating till Friday 27. After the meeting of the workers with members from traders union and workers union on Friday morning the workers disagree and attempted to continue striking but the ministry of health informed them that the incentives had been approved. The group said that they have sat down and brief themselves so that they can be on standby waiting for the approval of one month incentive as said by ministry administration and the two unions. They said that state ministry of health and environment together with the government of Jonglei state started to work on the issues of the workers and has approved one month incentive. Last week, three patients died during weekend as the strike which broke out last week left only eight doctors and few junior staff taking care of the more than 60 patients in the hospital. The Hospital’s Medical Assistant Deng John Machok said that they have conducted sit down complaining for their right to be given hardship allowances. The at least 250 staff are seeking 500 SSP allowance for medical assistants and clinical officers, 400 SSP for nurses and 100 SSP for cleaners. According to them two months allowances were given to them last August and October have not received anything since November 2012. Deng said that hardship allowances are related to over time and the whole hospital requires 61,000 SSP for the 247 staff. Posted in: Home, Governance, Health -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
