Regional Secretary for the Sierra Leone Health Workers Service Union, Alex Fatorma said the incident was not a strike but a protest over “broken promises”. The protesters are not regular health workers per se he said, but “those who volunteered to risk their lives to work at the Kenema Ebola Treatment Centre when Kenema was in terrible strife coping with the Ebola virus disease” adding “Some of these volunteers got Ejectment Notices from their landlords when they opted for this national and patriotic job so they must be recognized and treated with respect”. SEE BELOW FOR ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE OF THE ANGER BEHIND YESTERDAYS SHOCKING PROTEST -------- AWARENESS TIMES Sierra Leone News : Kenema Ebola Workers Angrily display Corpses By Augustine Samba - Nov 25, 2014 Alleged health workers in Eastern city of Kenema have on Monday 24th November 2014, displayed dead bodies around Kenema Government Hospital premises. Eyewitnesses say, in anger over incentive allowances that government has delayed to pay for weeks now, the Ebola burial team removed corpses from mortuary and placed them all over the main gate of the hospital. Several residents said the reaction of the health workers, no matter their grievances, was very unreasonable and also grossly inhuman to display dead bodies; though covered. However, speaking via phone line from Kenema, the Regional Secretary for the Sierra Leone Health Workers Service Union, Alex Fatorma said the incident was not a strike but a protest over “broken promises”. The protesters are not regular health workers per se he said, but “those who volunteered to risk their lives to work at the Kenema Ebola Treatment Centre when Kenema was in terrible strife coping with the Ebola virus disease”. “Because their backlogs have been delayed and the situation has almost returned to normalcy in Kenema, some of them are now thinking that their services are no longer paramount to the State as threat of the virus in Kenema is no more terrifying”, Fatorma said adding, “Some of these volunteers got Ejectment Notices from their landlords when they opted for this national and patriotic job so they must be recognized and treated with respect”. He went on to say overdue allowances of those protesters started as far back as several weeks ago with authorities in charge of their duly earned payments making ceaseless postponements thus this warranted them to mount a protest. Security officers however succeeded to calm the situation whilst Red Cross team took over burials of the corpses. All efforts by this medium to reach the District Medical Officer and Medical Superintendent were fruitless. Their phones were both switched off. In September, World Bank announced it has provided millions of dollars to cover payments of Ebola health care staff in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone. However, specifically in Sierra Leone, it is not clear why continuous delays in paying these patriotic Ebola staff. Notable is that government announced it recently uncovered ghost workers. © Copyright by Awareness Times Newspaper in Freetown, Sierra Leone. news.sl/drwebsite/publish/article_200526747.shtml
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 17:47:22 +0000