(MENAFN - The Post) MASERU -OPERATIONS at the Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital, also known as TÅ¡epong, has ground to a halt after supporting staff joined the nurses strike which has been dragging on for the past two weeks.
Chefs, receptionists, ward clerks and other support staff joined the strike on Monday.
This has completely crippled the referral hospital s operations.
The nurses are complaining that their salaries are lower than those of their counterparts at other hospitals. They are also demanding improved working conditions.
The support staff have similar grievances.
Hlalefang Seoaholimo, the secretary general for the Lesotho Workers Association (LEWA), said the strike by the support staff has long been in the making.
Hospitals run out of oxygen
MASERU-Lesotho is battling a serious shortage of oxygen leading to a surge in Covid-19 deaths,
thepost heard this week.
That is according to the deputy spokesman for the Coalition of Health Professionals (CPH) Dr Mojakisane Ramafikeng
Dr Ramafikeng told thepost yesterday that “for a long time we have been complaining and advising the government to make oxygen available”.
“We are still complaining of a lack of oxygen even today,” Dr Ramafikeng said, adding that where he works at the Queen ’Mamohato Memorial Hospital “we do not have that problem here”.
“But, professionals from different hospitals countrywide are complaining as we are talking now that there is a dire lack of oxygen and people are dying because of that,” he said.
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Covid-19 storm looms
MASERU-LESOTHO could be sleepwalking into a major Covid-19 tsunami as hundreds of Basotho sneak back into the country without screening.
In the past few weeks hordes of Basotho have illegally crossed back home from South Africa.
The Lesotho and South Africa governments seem unable to stop the influx of people through the porous borders. Lesotho’s situation is however more precarious because it is receiving people from a country already in the throes of a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Without screening and testing those sneaking in, Lesotho might be sitting on a time bomb that might burst in the next few weeks when infections start surging.