Backpay ‘go-slow’ begins

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Sched­uled surg­eries at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal were dis­rupt­ed yes­ter­day af­ter op­er­at­ing the­atre at­ten­dants called in sick, an ac­tion that is said to be linked to their frus­tra­tion over be­ing in­formed that they would not re­ceive back­pay this month.

Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that all elec­tive surg­eries were can­celled due to most of the hos­pi­tal’s the­atre at­ten­dants not re­port­ing for du­ty. The at­ten­dants took a sick day.

Their job is to trans­port pa­tients from the wards to the op­er­at­ing the­atre, and with­out their ser­vices, the surg­eries sched­uled for yes­ter­day were post­poned. Sources said this im­pact­ed at least sev­en elec­tive surg­eries. An elec­tive surgery is a pro­ce­dure that is sched­uled in ad­vance be­cause it does not in­volve a med­ical emer­gency.

Sev­er­al at­tempts over the past three days to con­tact Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe have so far been un­suc­cess­ful. Guardian Me­dia al­so at­tempt­ed to speak with Min­is­ter in the Health Min­istry, Dr Rishad Seecha­ran; how­ev­er, he too did not re­spond to phone calls.

Ef­forts at var­i­ous times yes­ter­day to get a com­ment from North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA) chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) An­tho­ny Blake were un­suc­cess­ful.

On Thurs­day, work­ers em­ployed di­rect­ly with the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties (RHAs) said they were plan­ning to “down tools” this month as they be­lieve the Gov­ern­ment has dis­re­spect­ed them.

While health work­ers em­ployed by the Min­istry of Health will re­ceive part of their back­pay this month fol­low­ing the De­cem­ber 2 “10 per cent” agree­ment be­tween the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO), there is an­oth­er group of health work­ers em­ployed di­rect­ly by the RHAs who will not get a sim­i­lar pay­day.

Both groups are rep­re­sent­ed by the PSA. How­ev­er, a sep­a­rate process must be ini­ti­at­ed by the as­so­ci­a­tion for the RHA-em­ployed work­ers to re­ceive their mon­ey. That process in­volves the Min­istry of Health, CPO and a Cab­i­net Sub-Com­mit­tee.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said the on­ly back­pay that will be paid this month will be for the work­ers cov­ered un­der the De­cem­ber 2 ne­go­ti­a­tion.

Hos­pi­tal work­ers said that it has been a blow to their morale, and this Christ­mas sea­son, they will take ac­tion to ex­press their dis­sat­is­fac­tion. Some RHA-em­ployed health work­ers as­signed to the South West­ern Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) told Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day that they plan to “down tools” be­tween De­cem­ber 22-31.

Mean­while, oth­er work­ers said they will take part in a day of “To­tal Health­care”, where all RHA staff across the coun­try will “act in uni­ty” and “rest and re­flect” on their im­por­tance and val­ue.

Sev­er­al work­ers said they have been un­able to reach their union rep­re­sen­ta­tives and be­lieve both the PSA and the Gov­ern­ment are now in an awk­ward po­si­tion, un­able to pub­licly con­tra­dict each oth­er be­cause of their close part­ner­ship.

Ef­forts to reach PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas have been made for some days now, with­out any suc­cess. The on­ly cor­re­spon­dence from Thomas came via a bul­letin post­ed to Face­book on Wednes­day.

In it, the union said it will be­gin the process to ne­go­ti­ate back­pay for health work­ers not cov­ered un­der the De­cem­ber 2 agree­ment, while al­so ask­ing RHA CEOs to pay those ar­rears even be­fore the new agree­ment is signed. The PSA has since re­strict­ed com­ments on that post.