K.H.M.H. Workers Union Meet with Minister of Health Amidst Tensions Over Pension
The executive of the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital Workers Union met with the Minister of Health, Pablo Marin; C.E.O. Doctor George Gough and Director of Health Services, Dr. Marvin Manzanero in Belmopan today. The meeting was scheduled two weeks ago, before Friday’s impromptu demonstration which saw approximately one hundred K.H.M.H. staff members gathered in front of the hospital. The staffers are up in arms that the C.E.O. Michelle Cox-Hoare told them, via a June twenty-eighth memo, that they were not pensionable. This surprising message to the staffers came months after they had a meeting in January in which the C.E.O. told them that they were pensionable. The union is insisting that the matter be taken before the courts for final determination, but according to Union President, Lidia Alpuche Blake, the C.E.O. has yet to respond to their concerns. At the meeting today, the staffs’ pension status was discussed with Minister Marin and the ministry’s top officials.
Lidia Alpuche Blake
Lidia Alpuche Blake, President, K.H.M.H. Workers Union
“We have discussed various issues but we want, they gave us some directives. We are going to be drafting some letters and then come back to the table and negotiate, speak inside rather than outside.”
Hipolito Novelo
“But the matter of pension status was discussed?”
Lidia Alpuche Blake
“Definitely. It was in the forefront of the meeting. After the introduction of the executive to the Minister, the other issue on the table the pension and we offered the minister, there and then, our stand as the K.H.M.H. Workers Union which is that we are waiting on our legal advisors to give us our opinion to present when the time comes.”
Reporter
“Is it that where the K.H.M.H. is saying that they can’t afford to pay the staff pension?”
Lidia Alpuche Blake
“Well they can’t say that. They need to answer to those questions. We just want clarity, clarity as to where we stand. That is all we wanted. We are looking for clarity where we stand on pension. Are we or are we not pensionable? And who is to pay, well they have to decide that.”
