Should the situation not improve for Nehawu members in the healthcare sector, we could see a complete withdrawal of labour in all sectors by September.
national programme of action to protect frontline healthcare workers by the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union are not met by government and key stakeholders in the healthcare sector between August and September, the country could find itself in the midst of “full blown action” by the organisation.
“The recent stats by the department of health indicates that as of 23 July 2020, about 13,174 healthcare workers were infected with Covid-19, while 107 workers had lost their lives. Out of the 13,174 infected workers, more than 10,275 of those workers are our members which they account for 78% of the reported numbers.”
Nehawu also met with ministers of health, employment and labour, trade and industry and the then acting director general of the national department of health the following month, while in the middle of a legal battle initiated by the union in an effort to force the national and provincial departments to adhere to the prescripts of the Occupation Health and Safety Act by providing PPE in order to protect the lives of frontline workers.
“The programme focused on epicentre provinces such as Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape which helped us to empirically verify the information and complaints we received already from members in branches and regional structures.” “Our team discovered that members and workers are victimised on a daily basis and nothing is done to have a cordial working environment including the dropping of disciplinary measures as announced by the Minister of Health. Moreover, we also found out the following: When a member has tested COVID-19 positive, some managers would refuse to carry out fumigation to disinfect the affected institution or section thereof. Such behaviour endangers the rest of the workforce as well as other patients.
“For instance, two members of Nehawu were given final written warnings by management for refusing to perform their duties without PPEs at the Tygerberg Hospital. In a province such as the Western Cape, managers have rejected reports of infection in the workplace from workers and they would even go as far as to compel such workers, who may even have already been diagnosed Covid-19 positive, to work as long as they did not have or present symptoms.
As a result, the union’s members in public institutions are said to be questioning the authenticity or accuracy of the stats supplied by government on infections on a daily basis.
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