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Health unions seek Government and authorities’ interventions

15 Mar 2022

BY Buddhika Samaraweera The health sector non-medical trade unions have pointed out that the Cabinet of Ministers, the Finance Ministry and the Public Service Commission (PSC) should pay more attention to finding solutions to their issues including those related to salaries and promotions so that their trade union struggle would not resume. Speaking to The Morning, the College of Medical Laboratory Science President Ravi Kumudesh said that although a Cabinet paper has been submitted to eliminate the salary anomalies of non-medical health professionals and to make relevant recommendations to formulate a framework for qualifications, no definite action has been taken in this regard so far. He also said: “It has been about seven months since the Cabinet decided to grant second class promotions in five years and first class promotions in seven years, but no specific programme has been prepared to implement this decision. The Health Ministry has submitted the relevant documents to the PSC seeking approval for its implementation, but no response has been received.”  Kumudesh also said that the recommendations of the PSC to revise the recruitment procedures have not yet been received. Further delays in the implementation of certain amendments to the said procedure which had been agreed upon by the Director General of Health Services have affected the resolution of our issues, he claimed. He charged that the interventions of the PSC, the Finance Ministry and the Cabinet are not enough. Given the matter, he said that it has been decided to hold a special executive council meeting of the Health Professionals’ Federation tomorrow (16) to reconsider strike action. Meanwhile, the non-medical health professionals’ trade unions yesterday held two protests in front of the National Hospital in Colombo and the Batticaloa Teaching Hospital, demanding that their salaries and promotion-related issues be addressed. A total of 18 non-medical health sector trade unions launched several trade union actions including token strikes, continuous strikes and protests over the said issues in the recent past.


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