WFTU Trade Union International Public Service & Allied (TUI-PS&A) Solidarity Statement With Lesotho Nurses Association
Tuesday March 23, 2021
“Workers of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your chains”
The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) Trade Union International Public Services and Allied (TUI PS & A), a class oriented union representing more than 30 million members around the world, and the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU), met with the Lesotho Nurses Association (LNA) and Coalition of Health Professionals Association. We met to listen to the plight of the dismissal of health workers, and to pledge our solidarity with these workers at a time when they are at the forefront of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
WFTU-TUI-PS&A is dismayed by the action of the government of Lesotho through the Department of Health, together with NETCARE Healthcare Group in dismissing more than 300 nurses at the Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH).
This happened after nurses and nursing assistants embarked in a go-slow on the 1st February 2021 to press the government, NETCARE and QMMH to award them salary increments to match their counterparts in other government and private institutions.
This is also happening under extremely challenging circumstances that nurses have been subjected to due to COVID-19, such as insufficient and inadequate Protective Personal Equipment (PPEs), hospital bed shortages, limited staff and long working hours. Nurses need to be in hospitals and not in the street.
WFTU-TUI-PS&A rejects these neoliberal policies of the government of Lesotho working with the private sector and monopolies to maximize profits at the expense of workers and the people of Lesotho through privatisation of public health through unscrupulous public private partnerships (PPP), which leave majority of the poor with no access to health.
We therefore demand the following:
- Immediate reinstatement of all workers that were dismissed with better working conditions and decent wages
- We demand that these workers be afforded their rights to collective bargaining, health, education, safety and proper housing.
We call upon all workers in Lesotho to unite and pledge their solidarity with the dismissed health workers.
WFTU-TUI-PS&A appeals to all workers in the world through their unions and federation to send messages of protest and solidarity with the health workers in Lesotho during these difficult times. Protest messages should be sent to NETCARE General Manager @ zondy.mohapi@netcare.co.za; government of Lesotho @ lerotholi.pheko@gov.ls; ministry of health @ sekatlesemano@gmail.com; and copied to General Secretary of LNA @ lesothonursesassociation@gmail.com; WFTU-TUI-PS&A @ clever@nehawu.org.za;
Issued by: Zola Saphetha, General Secretary, WFTU-TUI-PS&A
Clever Banganayi (Information & Publicity officer) +27721426625
clever@nehawu.org.za
email: khaya@nehawu.org.za