Fiji nurses to go on a strike is a strong possibility - Union

Nurses in Fiji are confused as to what is the actual salary increase under the new contracts that they are signing and their union says the likelihood for nurses to go on a strike is a strong possibility.

Fiji Nursing Association’s General Secretary Salanieta Matiavi says they are hoping to get a clarification from the government as most of the nurses are raising concerns that they are only getting a transitional 5 percent pay increase.

It was announced in the 2017/2018 National Budget that specialised nurses will get salary increases of 25 percent while nurse practitioners will get a 74 percent salary increase.

Matiavi said this has not eventuated and they will be conducting a secret ballot soon to see whether the nurses will go on a strike next month.

When questioned on what will happen to patients in hospitals and health centres if nurses will go on strike, Matiavi said nurses need to be satisfied by the government.

Matiavi said most nurses are not satisfied with the new contracts and they would like to go on strike.

There are over 2,000 nurses in the country and 1,500 nurses are members of the Fiji Nursing Association.

Meanwhile, a strike by members of the Confederation of Public Sector Unions is possible over their disagreement with the civil service reforms being undertaken by Government.

CPSU general secretary Rajeshwar Singh said a secret ballot would be conducted next week to decide on the strike.

“The Registrar of Trade Unions has been informed by the four unions. FPSA, FTA, FTU and FNA to supervise the balloting by its staff as per the requirement of ERP, Section 175 (3) (c),” he said.

In another development, Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has pointed out a number of incompetencies within the Ministry of Health and Medical Services.

While conducting the third round of nurses and civil service consultation in Suva Tuesday, he said there’s a lack of communication between the Human resources department and its staff.

He said this continues to be an issue across the board and it must be carefully looked into.

“The administrative arm of the ministry is obviously not doing as well as it should be. For example in particular some issues that were raised was regarding the issuance of the contract in time, regarding the advertisements of the position as their not giving the response on time. These are some of the issues the ministry of health official and the permanent secretary is obviously not overseeing properly and there’s a lot of complains about it. So we’re quite concerned about that and we will be raising it with the respective permanent secretary and the minister.”

More than 200 civil servants attended the consultation inquiring about new contracts and salary bands.

SOURCE: FIJI VILLLAGE/ FIJI TIMES/ FBC NEWS/