Trade union NEHAWU in the Northern Cape says it’s intensifying the strike by community healthcare workers. Hundreds of community health workers downed tools two weeks ago and have shut down clinics around Kimberley.
They’re demanding that all community health workers be employed permanently by the Northern Cape Health Department.
NEHAWU provincial secretary Stefan Cornelius says the aim is to send a strong message to the administration to ensure that they address the high level of unemployment.
“We are intensifying our strike, it’s an indefinite strike. We are now preparing for tomorrow’s (Monday) meeting with our community healthcare workers on the streets. We want to send a strong message to the sixth administration that it is the very sixth administration that says that the unemployment rate in the province is high, yet you have the premier who takes the unilateral decision to put a moratorium on vacant positions that are there.”
Last week, Northern Cape Health MEC Maruping Lekwene appealed to striking community health workers to allow patients and nurses to have access to clinics.
Northern Cape NEHAWU community healthcare workers vow to intensify strike:
In late September, NEHAWU in the Northern Cape called for the immediate termination of the outsourced security company at the Robert Mangaliso Sobukhwe Hospital in Kimberley. This occurred after a patient, Deon Mkhwanazi, was shot and killed in his hospital bed in full view of other patients.
NEHAWU provincial secretary Steffen Cornelius said how armed men gained access to the hospital with the presence of security guards is incomprehensible.
“We have more than many times raised the issue of insourcing securities in government departments. The fact that we are paying millions of rands to a private company and then get thugs gaining access with firearms baffles us. This act gives strength to the call that outsourcing is a wasteful expenditure and our call to the MEC of health, comrade Maruping Lekwene, to rather terminate the current security contract with immediate effect and insource all workers.”
