Army medics man hospitals
2007-06-03 22:31
Johannesburg - Government warned striking health workers to return to work on Monday or face being fired while soldiers staffed hospitals and private ambulance services moved seriously-ill babies to private facilities.
"If they are not at their workplace (by Monday), then we will be instituting a process of terminating their services," national director general of health Thamsanqa Dennis Mseleku told a news conference in Durban on Sunday.
Mseleku said this ultimatum applied to all health workers.
He said those who did not report for work within an hour of the start of their shifts would face action from the government.
Breaking Labour Court interdict
Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said essential service workers who joined the public service strike which started on Friday were breaking the Labour Court interdict issued against them on Thursday.
"We will not tolerate intimidation of those who choose not to strike, nor will we tolerate any disruption of essential services, or abuse of members of the public," said Fraser-Moleketi.
She said essential service workers who failed to report for work and those who intimidated other employees would face prosecution in terms of the interdict.
Fraser-Moleketi said wage negotiations would continue in the bargaining council on Monday. Government has offered a six percent increase while public sectors unions want 12%.
"We are confident that an agreement can be reached that is in the best interests of the public service, the employer and the nation," said the minister.
Army medics
Over the weekend soldiers, volunteers and private hospitals stepped in to help public health facilities crippled by the strike.
Uniformed army medics were on duty from 08:00 on Sunday in wards of the hard-hit King Edward VIII hospital, in Durban.
The intensive care unit closed after the skeleton staff was verbally abused and threatened.
Paramedics transported 18 critically-ill babies to various Durban hospitals after the hospital's neonatal ICU was also closed due to the strike, reported SABC on Sunday.
"These babies are very very ill," ER24 spokesperson Neil Noble told SABC.
"These patients have been taken to various hospitals in and around the greater Durban area.
However, the problem we face at the moment is that these hospitals too now are full, with their own patients as well as the extra workload from the government."
Baby airlifted in incubator
A critically-ill one-month-old infant was airlifted, in an incubator, to another facility.
Patients' families stood in for nurses and orderlies.
The hospital tried to recruit University of KwaZulu-Natal medical school students, but they were writing exams, said hospital manager Mboneni Bhekiswayo.
There were only 100 patients left in the 922 bed-facility on Sunday and the hospital was battling to find private hospitals with space for them.
Congress of SA Trade Unions first deputy president Sdumo Dlamini said the situation at King Edward VIII was "not in the plan" and a delegation was monitoring the problems.
Mseleku said health services were most severely affected in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
At some hospitals only two percent of staff reported for work.
"The situation is very disturbing in many of the provinces," said Mseleku.
Intimidation
"Not only have these employees illegally gone on strike, they've actually started acts of intimidation against members who have been trying to go to work."
There were reports of workers barricading hospital entrances, blocking ambulances and food supplies, of geysers being switched off and patients left without food.
"We believe that we cannot sit and watch while that kind of anarchy takes place."
Mseleku said that in Pietermaritzburg's Northdale hospital there had been reports of 10 deaths and, even if these were not attributable to the strike, the patients had not been accorded dignity after their deaths.
Mortuaries locked out
"For example the mortuaries have been locked out. So those people could not be moved to the mortuaries. They had to be left where they were for a long time."
Gauteng health spokesperson Zanele Mngadi said the maternity and casualty sections of Kalafong hospital in Atteridgeville, Pretoria, were closed because of staff shortages and patients taken to other hospitals.
Volunteers were helping to clean and a private service was washing linen.
The situation in Kalafong was "critical", reported SABC on Sunday evening, with 122 military medical students brought in to help and security provided by the Defence Force.
In Mpumalanga, services at three of 23 hospitals were disrupted, said SABC.
The Netcare Hospital Group said it took in about 30 patients nationally.
Ambulance services interrupted
Netcare 911 spokesperson Nick Dolman said rescue workers travelling further than anticipated to find hospitals willing to accept patients without medical aids, which was interrupting ambulance services.
"We have been crippled," a health worker at a Johannesburg Hospital said on condition of anonymity.
"There are about 50% of nurses on duty and the [defence force] is here to provide medical personnel.
"A private security company is ensuring the safety of our staff."
'We are all scared'
She said visiting hours on Saturday were cancelled after nurses were intimidated.
"We are all scared. I'm sure you can understand."
Democratic Nursing Association of SA (Denosa) deputy director Madithapo Masemola said that Denosa members supported the strike but, as an essential service, limited their action to lunchtime pickets.
Members who were not on duty had opted to remain at home because they felt unsafe being at the workplace, she said.
- SAPA