Staff Reporter
The Free State provincial health department says striking workers at the province’s major psychiatric hospital in Bloemfontein have agreed to return to duty following talks to address their grievances.
Staff at the Free State Psychiatric Complex had downed tools Monday morning claiming lack of support and adequate protection in the face of COVID-19.
Although labour unions remained tight-lipped on the outcome of the crisis talks held to resolve the industrial action at the mental health facility, saying there are issues to be finalised Tuesday, the provincial health department last night said the striking workers had agreed to return to work.
“We have agreed to carefully manage the COVID-19 environment,” provincial health spokesperson Mondli Mvambi told The Free Stater.
He said while some management shortcomings at the hospital were identified during the meeting, the staff was also urged to be more proactive when issues arise and communicate more promptly and not allow the situation to get out of hand.
“We have asked the CEO to increase the levels of monitoring and evaluation of control measures because, in some instances, there could be cases of management neglect,” Mvambi said.
“Some people in management were trained on COVID-19 issues but they have not cascaded the training to their lower levels.”
Among their grievances, the healthcare workers said they had not received adequate training on how to deal with COVID-19 in the workplace and they were not happy with their personal protective equipment (PPE) as they found it inadequate.
The matter seems to have worsened when at least 14 healthcare workers and 24 patients at the mental hospital tested positive for the acute respiratory disease.
Workers at the 877-bed institution immediately demanded that the institution be closed to allow for deep cleaning and decontamination as they feared more people could be infected.
The provincial health department dismissed the suggestion saying the affected places had been identified and deep-cleaned as recommended by the World Health Organisation.
“Our healthcare workers have been dealing with different infectious diseases for a very long time,” Mvambi said.
“Training on how to deal with COVID-19 situations is only complementary and failure to agree on certain things should not have led to them downing tools.
“The healthcare workers already know how to deal with other more dangerous infectious diseases.
“They will however be getting continuous training concerning the disease.
“They also have adequate PPEs but some are asking for coveralls, for example, when they are not working in risky environments that require such.”
On the issue of male and female mental patients being accommodated in the same isolation ward, the health spokesperson said the healthcare workers could not substantiate the claim when asked for details, but added the hospital management would continue monitoring the situation.
Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa Free State chairperson Thibogang Talbort Thole refused to shed light on the meeting saying he will comment when everything has been finalised.
“We are still going to have an engagement tomorrow (today). I don’t normally want to talk before issues are finalised. Talk to me after 11am tomorrow,” he said without confirming if indeed workers had returned to work.