Via Actualite.cd: Butembo: Nurses threaten to go on strike to demand their risk premiums and safety. Excerpt and then a comment:
Nurses members of the Intersyndicale Nurses of Butembo (North Kivu) threaten to go on strike to claim the payment of their risk premiums.
"We condemn the marginalization of health professionals other than doctors and dentists in Butembo. There we are talking about nurses, laboratory technicians and midwives who are abandoned. Our secretaries-general have just launched (in Kinshasa) the supervisory authorities with a seven-day ultimatum so that the question of our risk premiums can be settled. Otherwise we will start a movement of dry strike, we will observe days "hospitals without nurses,",warned Mr. Kambale Vake Okelo, president of the Intersyndicale of the nurses, of Butembo, revealing to the press the resolutions of the GA.
The followers of Florence denounce the non-payment of their risk premiums, while they work this last time in "difficult" conditions.
"The members (of Intersyndicale, editor's note) are sorry to note that despite the recommendations and suggestions made in our memorandum (addressed to the authorities), the question seems not to attract their attention. We will see the urban authority, and in case of unsatisfaction, we will trigger a dry strike," denounces Mr. Kambale Vake Okelo.
Preventive activities remain suspended In addition to not paying their risk premiums, the nurses have also lashed out at attacks and violence that they continue to suffer as a result of their involvement in the response to the Ebola virus disease that has already hundreds of deaths. Thus, they decided to continue the suspension of prevention activities, including prenatal consultation (CPN), preschool consultation (CPS) and routine vaccinations, as it has been for nearly three months now in the city. of Butembo.
"The Mayor (of Butembo, Editor's note) has requested that a minimum service of CPN, CPS and routine vaccinations be organized. But we are not going to start them, especially since the inhabitants who claim them are the same ones who continue to keep the malicious people who threaten us. Today, some nursing staff no longer sleep at home, they no longer arrive at their health centers, fearing for their safety. Some refrigerators (which allow the conservation of vaccines, Ed) have been damaged, burned health centers: where will we hold the CPN sessions, CPS or vaccination? Where will we find the inputs we use during the vaccination? We are therefore maintaining the suspension of prevention activities while waiting for the urban authority to convene an exchange framework to establish responsibilities," says Kambale Vake Okelo.
Note that following this measure of nurses to suspend prevention activities, nearly 2,500 children born since March have not yet been vaccinated against measles, tuberculosis, poliomyelitis and many other diseases in the city. of Butembo.
Last Monday, June 27, fearing for the health of their children, more than a dozen breastfeeding women went to protest at the town hall of Butembo to claim the vaccine.
"We demand the vaccine for our children. We come from Matanda Hospital; We have been told that the vaccine is available but we will not have it because our husbands are bandits and they are the ones who are attacking nurses and destroying health facilities. So we ask the mayor to intervene so that our children are vaccinated," said one of them to the press, indicating that there are already "some children who suffer from cough for lack of vaccine."
More than two weeks ago, the women went to discuss the same issue with the urban authority, but without success. The nurses recommend that the authority organize a social dialogue with the communities to establish the responsibilities, in order to contain the resistance as well as the armed attacks against their colleagues.
It looks like a default response: when an outbreak hits a poor country, the government stops paying the people who are fighting it. If foreign money pours in, it seems rarely to reach the people who are earning it. That may be tough on the patients and their caregivers, but somebody in a suit is always thinking about that retirement villa in the south of France.
