Health workers at Mbarara regional referral hospital have threatened to go on a sit down strike if the Ministry of Health does not pay their salaries for the month of June within four days.
The planned strike could put the lives of hundreds of patients at risk.
The hospital executive director, Dr. George Openytho, says about 80 expectant mothers are admitted in the labour ward daily.
Dr Openytho says the patient numbers are overwhelming even before the health workers go on strike.
He claims those planning to go on strike are the ones who received huge sums of money early this year and are refusing to comply with the administration in the recovery process.
The workers’ concern stems from excess amount of money deposited on their bank accounts for the month of May 2012 due to a technical error by the ministry of public service.
Each worker is said to have received money worth more than four months’ pay.
This caused delays in releasing their June salaries as both the ministry officials and hospital administration try to find means of treating the excess money as loans in order to recover it from their subsequent monthly salaries.
The move has since sparked off a misunderstanding as the workers insist that the money deposited on their accounts was never requested for in form of loans for the hospital to start making deductions.
The workers also complain of not receiving their allowances for a period of ten months offered by Mulago-Mbarara joint HIV/Aids program MJAB.
Asumpta Nakalanzi, a senior nursing officer and workers representative on the board, says there is no way the health workers can deliver better services when they are being evicted from houses due to non-payment of rent and other accumulated debts.
Nakalanzi warned that failure to have their June salary released by Monday next week, the health workers will not report on duty.
This is the first time for the workers at the health facility to receive such excess money in salary earnings.
Jim Barungi, the Hospital Personnel Officer, said for Mbarara regional referral hospital alone, 109 million shillings was deposited in excess to individual workers’ accounts. There are close to 300 health workers and support staff at the hospital.
Barungi says the error was caused by the ministry of public service in May this as it adopted a new payment system.
