The mailing says 19 health care workers at Siloam Hospital in the South African bantustan of Venda have been suspended and face possible dismissal for protesting unsafe medical practices that already have caused some patients to die; the workers charged the bantustan-appointed hospital administrator and doctors with malpractice, racism and cronyism. The mailing says the crisis began in February 1990 when hospital workers, barred from joining the COSATU-affiliated health workers union by bantustan law, formed a consultative committee to negotiate with the hospital administration and the Venda Health Department over a range of grievances. U.S. health care unions, doctors' organizations and other...
The mailing says 19 health care workers at Siloam Hospital in the South African bantustan of Venda have been suspended and face possible dismissal for protesting unsafe medical practices that already have caused some patients to die; the workers charged the bantustan-appointed hospital administrator and doctors with malpractice, racism and cronyism. The mailing says the crisis began in February 1990 when hospital workers, barred from joining the COSATU-affiliated health workers union by bantustan law, formed a consultative committee to negotiate with the hospital administration and the Venda Health Department over a range of grievances. U.S. health care unions, doctors' organizations and other concerned Americans are asked to send faxes of support for the workers to the head of the Venda bantustan, General Gabriel Ramushwana, urging that any further charges or actions against the committee be dismissed, that they be reinstated with pay, and that hospital authorities negotiate in good faith with the committee over the serious, even life-threatening deficiencies at the hospital. The mailing asks people to send copies of their protest to the South African Ambassador to the United States Ambassador Pieter Koornhof and to committee chair David Nyambeni in Venda, South Africa.
