K.H.M.H. Workers Union Wants Medical Chief of Staff Gone!
Last week, News Five reported on brewing troubles at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. The K.H.M.H. Workers Union met with medical officers who have been disgruntled for the past few weeks over unpaid overtime. The Union wrote to C.E.O. Michelle Cox Hoare and the K.H.M.H.A. Board demanding that Medical Chief of Staff Doctor Beatriz Thompson be removed. The deadline for her removal was on Wednesday and now the medical officers are prepared to take actions that could disrupt services at the national referral hospital. On September twentieth, News Five spoke to union president Lidia Alpuche Blake who told us about the tensions and frustration building up within the walls of the K.H.M.H.
Lidia Alpuche Blake
Lidia Alpuche Blake, President, K.H.M.H. Workers Union
“There are many issues boiling with the staff in there. It might seem happy out here but a lot of things are happening in there. A lot changes are happening. A lot of new people are being hired, questionably hired. It reached the point that just at the point that all of this is occurring too the union was just getting its bargaining rights. So we are a young meaning and we have to be dealing with everything at one time.”
Hipolito Novelo
“It seems that frustration and tensions are building up within the walls of the K.H.M.H. Has this going on for the past years or is this recent?”
Lidia Alpuche Blake
“No, it has been happening for many years. We have proven it. Remember I think last year 2018, with the ADHOC committee when we asked for the removal of the then Director of Human Resources. Things like that continue to occur and it’s questioned. And now it is the Union’s turn to deal with it. The Union now goes along, we have a tripartite agreement with the labor department and Karl Heusner. We try to find solution that will not infringe on the healthcare of the nation. Talking and talking, sometimes you have to have some action. There is a big issue concerning the medical officers of this institution. They form a major part of this health care service in this institution. We have been dialoging but we have to find solutions that will work for everyone and the legal conditions we work and the legal way that we are compensated.”
