Sangre Grande hospital attendants cry foul

THE EDITOR: This is a copy of a letter written to the Minister of Health for his attention.

The hospital attendants attached to the county hospital, Sangre Grande, have written and appealed to the authorities to get this complaint settled by the Hospital Services Administrator, County Hospital, Sangre Grande, the President, Public Services Association of Trinidad and Tobago, the Director Compensation Management of the Chief Personnel Office and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, but to date our complaint has not been addressed.

Excerpt from our letter is mentioned hereunder:-
For about four years the hospital attendants of this medical institution have been handling cooked food, drinks, milk and porridge from the kitchen to the wards and Extended Care Unit which is contrary to our job specification. This complaint is about a temporary arrangement between a former attendant and a hospital manager. Before the attendant retired he used to get compensatory time off (CTO) for days worked on public holidays and on weekends.However, after he retired other hospital attendants have been performing similar duties but we are not getting any CTOs. In keeping with good industrial relation practices in the first place we are not supposed to be performing this duty at all and it was the fault of the hospital manager to clean up this mess before the manager left the medical institution, so that attendants would not be in this situation today. Our colleague benefitted while he was working but it is unfair for us to be doing the same work and we are not benefitting.

Subsequent to our letter, the Public Services Association sent a representative from the union who met with the Hospital Services Administrator and the elected representative of the Hospital Staff. The Hospital Services Administrator gave us the assurance that things will be put in place to resolve this matter. This has not been done. We shall be much obliged if you can cause steps to be taken to rectify this matter.

R KHAN
Sangre Grande