Dai­ly-paid North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty work­ers at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day staged a protest to high­light haz­ardous work­ing con­di­tions and to press for a nine per cent wage in­crease. The 200 work­ers were sup­port­ed in their ac­tion by the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW).

"We are not tak­ing noth­ing less than nine per cent, even more," NUGFW pres­i­dent Clif­ford Halls said. "We are shocked at the RHA's de­ci­sion to bring back that five per cent of­fer. The work­ers are show­ing great dis­ap­point­ment with that of­fer and it has an­gered them very much."

Halls said the union was still try­ing to bring 2008-2010 ne­go­ti­a­tions to a con­clu­sion. He al­so cit­ed health and safe­ty risks the work­ers were ex­posed to on a dai­ly ba­sis at the hos­pi­tal such as han­dling haz­ardous and high­ly con­ta­gious ma­te­ri­als. He said the two re­frig­er­a­tors at the mor­tu­ary were not func­tion­ing prop­er­ly and the mor­tu­ary area had de­te­ri­o­rat­ed. One work­er said the de­plorable con­di­tions have per­sist­ed for more than 13 years.

They in­clud­ed chang­ing rooms shared by male and fe­male work­ers, no med­ical ex­ams for em­ploy­ees and the ab­sence of a health plan for the past four years, no staff doc­tors and prop­er pro­tec­tive gear, the pro­posed im­ple­men­ta­tion of a shift sys­tem with­out con­sult­ing work­ers, week­end staff re­duced from nine to four men to haul garbage, sweep the hos­pi­tal and clean toi­lets.

A fe­male work­er said: "A pa­tient with tu­ber­cu­lo­sis (TB) came in ca­su­al­ty and no doc­tor want­ed to touch him and I had to clean up af­ter with­out any pro­tec­tive gear." She said she of­ten swept con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed wa­ter with­out safe­ty boots and had to share the toi­lets with her male col­leagues.

An­oth­er work­er re­vealed that the in­cin­er­a­tor for dis­pos­ing of haz­ardous ma­te­ri­als has nev­er worked since its in­stal­la­tion 11 years ago. He said he han­dled waste ma­te­r­i­al from pa­tients with high­ly in­fec­tious dis­eases such as TB, HIV/AIDS and he­pati­tis with­out prop­er equip­ment.

The work­er said he was of­ten sent to the ma­ter­ni­ty room to clean up af­ter work­ing in the lab­o­ra­to­ry with­out de­con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. "I have five kids at home to wor­ry about," he said. Halls said the work­ers will con­tin­ue with their protest ac­tions at all the hos­pi­tals un­til their ne­go­ti­a­tion­ss were set­tled but gave the as­sur­ance that pa­tients would not be neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed.