Malawi Nurses working in public health facilities have threatened to join the ongoing strike by civil servants, if current talks between Government Negotiating Team (GNT) and Civil Service Trade Union (CSTU) fail to reach settlement on demands for salary increment and improved working conditions.
According to local media reports the Nurses through The National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives of Malawi (NONM) a nongovernmental organisation which represents the interests of nurses, midwives and student nurses and midwives had already written GNT chairperson, Dr MacPhail Magwira of their intention to join the industrial action.
The Nurses have given government 14 days from Tuesday this week to resolve their grievances else they will also join the strike which has paralyzed the government administrative nerve centre Capital Hill in Lilongwe the administrative city.
Speaking in an interview with one local radio aired today, Harriet Kapyepye a senior official of NONM said her organisation has given authorities 14 days to look into their grievances at the same time to give a chance to negotiations between the government public servants union leaders.
“We have written authorities as a matter of procedure with the aim of notifying them of our intention. At the same time we want to give them enough time to look into ways to resolve our grievances,” she explained.
She further said her organisation was following with keen interest discussions between CSTU and GNT, saying her organisation move on the matter will depend on the outcome of the talks between the two sides.
However, she expressed concern over the slow pace of the talks, amidst reports that yesterday round of talks had collapsed prompting the public workers representative to extend the industrial action to Friday (today).
But the Nurses representative have assured the public that they will maintain a skeleton staff in all public hospitals and health centres in the event the nurses organisation joins the industrial action in order to attend to emergencies and critically ill patients.
“[We will not completely shutdown all our services. We will keep a skeleton staff that will be attending to emergencies and critically ill patients. We will strive to ensure that there should be no loss of life once we join the strike],” She explained.
The civil servants staged a 2 day stay away from Monday to Tuesday but the stay away has continued throughout all the working days following failure by government negotiators to convince hem that their grievances will be attended to.
About 90 percent of Malawi public depends on the free public health facilities for medical care.
Malawi has been reeling under effects of austerity measures President Joyce Banda administration adopted to resuscitate the economy, which included 49 percent devaluation of the Kwacha and automatic pricing mechanism of fuel that has resulted into high cost of living.
The civil servants are demanding a salary review, just months after being granted a 21% pay hike. According to some published reports, some workers in the estimated 170, 000 civil service in Malawi receives an average monthly pay of $100.
Last month a consumer rights group staged street demonstrations to protest against the austerity measures.
