On Wednesday 20 January Nehawu (National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union) marched to Potchefstroom Hospital to raise their voices against workers being harassed and threatened in the workplace.
According to Nehawu, there is no consistency where management is involved and employers are on the trend of dismissing members for petty issues. An anonymous person, who claims to have been a nurse at Potchefstroom Hospital, came forward with grievances that she had in her former workplace. This 60-year-old nurse said that even though on the brink of retirement, she eventually resigned because she couldn’t take the circumstances at work anymore.
According to her, she is more qualified than some of the people in managerial positions and has been threatened not to talk.
“We are afraid of speaking out,” she says. “It’s heartbreaking because the nurses are the ones who suffer.” She added that she was harassed and victimised at work to such an extent that she had to seek help for depression.
“I think this corruption comes from the top – our government.”
According to Mr Modiri Mompati, spokesperson of Potchefstroom Hospital, no complaint of harassment has been made to management by any nurse. Mompati, together with the acting CEO, Dr Michael Shakung, nursing manager Matron Seleke and Beatrice Motlogeloa from Potchefstroom Hospital denied the allegations that management is unqualified and that nurses are being harassed and victimised.
According to Seleke, all nurses working at the Potchefstroom Hospital know the procedure to follow if being harassed or if they have any other complaints. “If the nurse had come forward, we would have acted to help her, but no one has come forward with any such complaint,” she said
Motlogeloa says yesterday’s march was a regional march and the grievances are therefore not exclusive to the Potchefstroom Hospital.
“Nurses may have been harassed at other hospitals in the North West, but we have received no such complaints from the Potchefstroom Hospital.”
Shakung encourages workers who feel they are being victimised to come forward so the issue can be resolved but says that there are certain steps to take if someone is such a victim. Other issues that were raised during the march were the lifts in the hospital that have been out of order since February 2013 and patients and corpses that have to be carried from the 3rd floor.
The structure of the hospital is also not correctly placed and general workers have to work for ten days without any rest in between.
With this march, Nehawu hopes to force the employer to come to terms with their workers’ needs. The march started at Ikageng Road at 09:00 and the memorandumwas handed over to Potchefstroom Hospital’s management at 12:00.
