Nehawu states their demands
Members of Nehawu marched to the Department of Health last week to demand, among others, the absorption of student doctors, the payment of bonuses and the refurbishment of dilapidated infrastructure in most health facilities in the province.
POLOKWANE – The National Health and Allied Workers Union workers also pleaded with the department to permanently employ community healthcare workers and reinstate the union’s shop stewards who were dismissed.
Jacob Adams, provincial secretary of Nehawu said there are problems with the executive management at the department and they want the whole executive management to be restructured.
“Workers feel the department is not properly led and managed. Workers are being exploited and confined to unsafe working conditions. There is no interest from the department in protecting the workers. We want to Extended Public Works Programme workers to be permanently employed at the department. The department must also open the nursing colleges and they must pay performance bonuses.”
Responding to workers’ grievances, Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba said they have inherited the department with all its irregularities.
“It was suffering financially but we managed to correct many issues. Certain services have, however, been compromised.
“We are running a department with a bloated infrastructure. Given the limited resources, we have been able to overcome a lot of challenges. We do have challenges but we have not collapsed. We must come together and fix the problems.”
