Health Minister Joe Phaahla faces his biggest test since taking over the mantle from the corruption implicated Zweli Mkhize in 2021.
On Phaahla's watch, at least four South Africans died in the past week due to illegal labour action by the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu).
Nehawu, a Cosatu affiliate, represents about 112 000 healthcare workers at the country's public clinics and hospitals. In terms of the law, healthcare workers are categorised as "essential workers" for obvious reasons. They are not allowed to strike.
Yet, in defiance of numerous court interdicts prohibiting Nehawu nurses and hospital workers from striking, they continued to down tools. And not only that, many Nehawu members took it upon themselves to prevent sick patients, some of them children, from accessing healthcare services.
Some of them violently removed doctors and hospital workers, who refused to strike, from the country's healthcare facilities, thereby violating the most basic oath of a healthcare professional.
As these examples show, in the past week, many Nehawu members became murderers, criminals and thugs.
At the Pelonomi Hospital in Bloemfontein, an unborn baby died after the absence of nurses delayed an emergency Caesarean section. Placental abruption occurred, and when doctors operated on her hours later, the baby had died, Rapport reported.
- At Charlotte Maxeke Hospital in Johannesburg, a 40-year-old man with gangrene and severe pain told News24 he was told to pack his bags and leave the hospital as it was too dangerous for him to remain there. He had to ask strangers to wheel him out of the vicinity.
- At the General Gizenga Mpanza Hospital in KwaDukuza, KwaZulu-Natal, a female nurse wielding a panga attacked an ambulance carrying a critically ill teenage boy and tried to open the ambulance. A male nurse punched a paramedic who pleaded with striking workers to let them through in the face.
Phaahla announced on Thursday that four people had died due to the illegal strike. That number would have grown exponentially over the past four days as more reports of violent behaviour emerged.
Let's remind ourselves why the healthcare workers are striking. Nehawu is demanding a 10% salary increase for all their members backdated to 2022 after the government approved a 3% increase for all public servants last year.
On top of that, Nehawu wants a R2 500 housing allowance.
According to the union's secretary-general, Zola Saphetha, they cannot even start to negotiate 2023's increases after the 2022 matter has been solved.
I don't know in which world the likes of Saphetha live, but in the real world, very few employees have received 10% increases since Covid-19 decimated the global economy. South Africa cannot afford double-digit raises for the 1.2 million public servants in a declining economy.
In fact, the public servant's wage bill needs to be significantly reduced, especially at the top levels, to get us back to a more sustainable fiscal path.
But even if you agree with Nehawu's outlandish demands, the violence and illegality accompanying the strike should still be condemned. It is unacceptable for nurses and healthcare workers to endanger the lives of those they are supposed to save.
Phaahla's spokesperson said this week the minister would take legal advice on whether to charge those striking Nehawu members who prevented patients from receiving treatment with attempted murder.
I think the minister should take it a notch further and ask his lawyers, and the National Prosecuting Authority, whether there isn't a case to be made for people like Saphetha and Nehawu president Mike Shingange to be charged with murder, attempted murder and assault.
I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me a case could be made that it was as a direct result of their instruction to Nehawu members to strike illegally that babies and patients died, and critically ill children were attacked with pangas.
It's time for the leaders of trade unions to take responsibility for the violent and thuggish behaviour of their members.
Phaahla should do the right thing and bring an end to the impunity characterizing this strike.
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