Times Of Swaziland: NURSES TO STRIKE NEXT WEDNESDAY

NURSES TO STRIKE NEXT WEDNESDAY
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 BY SIBUSISO ZWANE on 12/10/2017 00:41:00


MATSAPHA – As of Wednesday next week, nurses countrywide will not be working.
This comes after the Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU), which is
referred to as the sole voice  for nurses in the country, decided to stage an
action packed nationwide nurses’ strike from Wednesday and it will last until
government adheres to their demand.
Their demand is that government, especially the Ministry of Health, should stop
the ongoing commission of inquiry intot an incident that took place on Christmas
Day of 2015 at Mkhuzweni Health Centre, where a child died during birth.
The decision was taken by the nurses’ union during its mid-term conference,
which was held at Esibayeni Lodge from Monday until yesterday.
The nurses’ strike will start on Wednesday with a march to deliver a petition
with an ultimatum to the Prime Minister’s (PM’s) office. In the petition,
the nurses would demand that the PM, as the head of government, stops the
ongoing investigation into the matter.
Thereafter, the nurses union resolved that from Thursday, all nurses should
engage in a sit-in and picket at their workstations during their lunch hour.
They want the investigation stopped because they feel that it was not honest.
They claimed that it was being used by government and medical professionals to
attack nurses.
This was after SWADNU President Bheki Mamba had revealed to the conference that
the doctor who attended to the patient on December 25, 2015, did not write on
the patient’s chart what he did when attending to her.