The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) has reiterated that their members are planning to strike over wage increase disputes as employees have not received increases for 2020.
The union is also concerned about the National Health Laboratories Service saying employees are not provided with adequate personal protective equipment to help defend themselves against the coronavirus.
Nehawu spokesperson Khaya Xaba says health sector members are facing more responsibilities amid the pandemic.
“Those workers had to work extra hours [and] extra hard because more testing had to be done and 80% of testing was done with NLS. The management doesn’t show any appreciation for the hard work that has been done. Some workers are being given one mask to use for the whole week.”
“You need to be consistent and ensure that workers are supplied [with] PPE, not an intermittent one. Health care workers are losing their lives, so we need to support those workers. If we don’t, we might have a situation where we won’t have anyone to tend to patients,” adds Xaba.
In the video below, NEHAWU briefed the media on findings on state’s readiness for COVID-19:
