ABERDEEN NEWS - Over 200 people have signed a petition in protest about the employment policy at Aberdeen Hospital.
About 100 of these joined in a peaceful protest march, with a police and vehicle escort, from the Masikhane Clinic to the hospital last Friday, when the petition was handed over to Clinical Manager Dr Funani Desemele, who accepted it on behalf of the CEO Patiswa Pietersen, who was not at the hospital.
Amongst the protesters' grievances is the claim that local unemployed nurses are not considered for posts at the hospital, but positions are given to applicants from other areas, many of whom cannot speak Afrikaans. As the vast majority of the patients at the hospital are Afrikaans-speaking, and many cannot communicate in English, this causes many problems.
"If a person is very sick, or badly injured, they find it very difficult to describe their symptoms and pain in a language which they already struggle to speak and understand," explained one of the marchers.
Many of the highly qualified and experienced nurses and nursing sisters have resigned from the hospital in recent years, leaving only a very few nurses who are fluent in Afrikaans, who are often called upon to interpret.
The protestors making their way from the Masikhane Clinic to the hospital last Friday.
According to one of the organisers, members of the hospital board are often not consulted about these new appointments, which are made even without their knowledge which in some cases are even made without their knowledge.
There are several fully qualified professional nurses and enrolled nurse assistants who are from Aberdeen, but are forced to seek employment elsewhere, sometimes in different provinces.
This causes great disruption to their family lives, as usually, these are women whose husbands work in Aberdeen, and their children are schooled in the town.
The petition asks for local people to be employed, who know and understand the residents of the area. A response was requested within seven days.
Dr Desemele was given the opportunity to comment, but he declined to do so.
'We bring you the latest Aberdeen, Karoo news'
