Three hundred and forty-five staff from the main hospital in the country’s capital, Maseru, were fired. Their fault? Having gone on strike during the month of February to demand the same salary as their colleagues in other hospitals. This is the announcement too many, in a kingdom already plagued by several deadly epidemics.
They are at the forefront of Lesotho’s vaccination campaign, yet hundreds have been sidelined. While on strike for a month, 345 nurses at Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH), a government-owned health facility, were made redundant. If they had decided to make their voices heard, it was because “nurses from QMMH receive at least 4,000 rand (or 226 euros) per month less than their counterparts in other public hospitals ”, British daily reports The Guardian.
According to the hospital, their dismissal follows a failure to comply with a court decision of February 24 obliging them to work until the conflict is resolved. Only here, the employees were not at their workplace that day. The dismissal is effective immediately, the hospital said.
Asphyxia
From now on, the hospital risks paying a heavy human price because of this massive dismissal. “This decision is not viable ”, anonymously deplores a doctor with the London newspaper. Because, although this small landlocked country, smaller than Belgium, totals only 309 recorded deaths since the start of the epidemic, it has been faced with a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases since the end of 2020.
However, Lesotho has an already fragile health system. Not to mention that he leads several battles head-on, reminds The Guardian : “The African state was already making efforts to fight tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria.”
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