Striking public-sector workers in South Africa warned on Monday that government threats to sack health workers would derail efforts to resolve an increasingly bitter pay dispute.
Fikile Majola, secretary general of the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) said negotiations would resume on Monday in a bid to end the indefinite strike which began on Friday.
”If government fires health workers, it [the negotiation process] is not going to work. We will defend these workers,” Fikile Majola, told the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
Even though the government has obtained a court order that forbids doctors and nurses from taking part in the strike, many hospitals have only been able to run a skeleton service in the last few days.
Demonstrations
A staff member manning the phones at Durban’s Addington Hospital told the Mail & Guardian Online on Monday morning that ”there are lots of people demonstrating outside”.
The staff member, who spoke to the M&G Online on condition of anonymity, said most staff members were not at work because the strikers were blocking the entrance to the hospital.
He said the strikers were letting patients in to the hospital.
”The police and the strikers didn’t communicate very well and the police [then] teargassed them,” he said.
South African National Defence Force medics had to be called in to treat patients at one of the country’s largest hospitals on Sunday, Durban’s King Edward VIII, after only a few doctors made it past the picket line.
The director general of the Health Department, Thami Mseleku, told a press conference on Sunday that any health workers who failed to turn up to work on Monday would face the sack.
He said that the directive would be handed over to hospitals and workers unions on Monday.
Public-sector workers launched their strike in a bid to force the government to meet their demands for a 12% pay increase.
The government has so far refused to increase their offer of 6% which is around one percentage point below the current rate of inflation.
‘We will not tolerate intimidation’
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.
”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 Fraser-Moleketi.
‘Not in the plan’
Congress of South African 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 2% of staff reported for work.
”The situation is very disturbing in many of the provinces,” said Mseleku.
”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.
”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 department 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 the 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 the SABC.
The Netcare Hospital Group said it took in about 30 patients nationally.
Netcare 911 spokesperson Nick Dolman said rescue workers were 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.”
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