SA leads the way in heartlessness

If SA’s unionised health workers paid any attention to the TV images from countries overseas, where the fight against the coronavirus is in full swing, they would see medical professionals – doctors and nurses – along with support staff in hospitals doing what they signed up for – trying to save lives.

Many people go into the profession to do this – to help people and not because it is just another job and a pay cheque at the end of every month. Healthcare is a vocation and in this global crisis, we are seeing the best of people as they put others first.

Yet in South Africa, some nurses are threatening to strike for danger pay … danger pay for doing the job they chose to do. It is like a soldier demanding extra money for going to fight.

The power of strength of unionised labour – which the government seems to be in awe of – now looks like going too far.

Without wanting to sound jackbooted and capitalistic, threatening industrial action and demanding special financial incentives by people who are the most essential of essential services goes well beyond the pale in our view.

We already see those other civil services posts which are more vocations than anything – teaching and policing – being turned into mere meal tickets by people who don’t care that they are supposed to be serving the people who pay them, the taxpayers.

On the other hand, we have every sympathy with those who do not have adequate personal protective equipment. Health workers are being infected and dying in worrying numbers everywhere the virus has accelerated, so the concern is a genuine one.

However, nowhere in the world have nurses or doctors refused to tend patients, despite shortages. South Africa again leads the way in heartlessness.

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