Minister to intervene in nurses’ grievances
MASERU-LABOUR Minister Moshe Leoma yesterday pledged to instruct the Labour Commissioner to investigate the striking nurses’ grievances against Queen ’Mamohato Memorial Hospital.
The pledge was made as part of a deal the minister signed with the Coalition of Health Professionals (CHP) and the Lesotho Workers Association (Lewa).
The HPA and Lewa had written to Leoma suggesting that he should follow the Labour Code Order which gives him powers to intervene when providers of essential services are in dispute with their employers.
The Code says if a minister sees that “a trade dispute threatens the continuance of any essential service he or she may call upon the Commissioner of Labour to investigate” the dispute within 10 days.
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.
Five health unions in Costa Rica on Tuesday issued a joint statement asking authorities to enact immediate restrictions in order to stem the rate of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations.
Saying the “darkest hour” of the pandemic has arrived in Costa Rica, a letter penned by the five unions of the Alliance of Health Professionals requested an “urgent” response from the Health Ministry.
“We demand an increase of restrictive measures,” the letter reads. “One possibility is immediate confinement from now until the New Year, to give a break to the exhausted hospital network and its staff.
“In addition, the closing of airports and borders, and an extension of the vehicular restrictions must be ordered.”