NASSAU, BAHAMAS — For a fifth consecutive day, healthcare services around the country were interrupted as workers called in sick and walked off the job amidst ongoing frustration over being left out of COVID-19 honorarium payments.
The Public Hospitals Authority (PHA) advised in a statement that Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), Grand Bahama Health Services (GBHS) and Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre (SRC) continue to experience a staff sickout and warned the public to expect delays in accessing services at these institutions.
Dozens of workers from PMH walked off the job early yesterday morning, said Bahamas Public Services Union (BPSU) Secretary General O’Neil Thurston.
“These are workers who were left off the honorarium list and they are concerned about their honorarium,” Thurston told Eyewitness News.
“The only question they have today is when they are going to be paid and how they are going to be paid.
“We felt that it was a grave injustice done when the minister decided and the PHA decided that they are going to cherry-pick as to who got paid. Every worker in this place was affected by COVID-19 in some way or another.”
In a statement on Friday, the PHA acknowledged “the current employee unrest throughout the organization related to the disbursement of honoraria by the government”.
It sought to clarify that “not all employees meet the criteria as established by the Cabinet for payment of this honorarium”.
“This honorarium was originally intended for a subset of frontline healthcare employees who, when most healthcare workers were hesitant and declined to serve in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, offered their names and talents to initiate the COVID-19 response,” the PHA said.
This eligibility was reportedly expanded to include additional staff, some working in clinical and non-clinical settings, during the period March 19 through June 18, 2020.
However, Thurston insisted that despite there being a volunteer period, all employees, including housekeeping, lab and kitchen staff, “had no other choice than to work” as COVID-19 quickly spread throughout the country.
“In many cases, many of us would have contracted COVID-19 and taken home to our families or in many occasions we were in quarantine,” he said.
“All we are saying to the administration today is be fair. We worked, so pay us. We don’t have any other question other than how we are going to get pay and when we going to get paid. We ain’t into no long talking. We worked; pay us.”
Thurston said all departments were impacted by COVID-19, so there was no area that should have been pushed aside, pointing to the housekeeping department, which lost an employee in the line of duty.
Thurston also took issue with Health Minister Renward Wells’ personal assistant and driver receiving the honorarium, even though they were in “no imminent danger”.
In a statement clarifying the payouts, the Ministry of Health confirmed the pair was awarded $1,158.40 and not the $5,000 as purported.
Late last night, Wells advised that he asked his driver and personal assistant to return the $1,158.40 disbursed to them and that both individuals returned the funds.
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