Some workers of the facility that takes care of emergency medical care in the nation’s capital have since May 22 been demanding the payment of social insurance benefits and the establishment of permanent contracts through a sit-in strike action
Close to 400 staff of the Yaounde Emergency Centre have since May 22 been organising a 5-hour (7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.) sit-in strike to demand solutions to their 17-point formulated complaints. Key among the demands, is the payment of their social insurance benefits and the request to issue them permanent contracts.
“We are out because we are asking for matriculation after working here for more than nine years,” one of the striking workers told reporters Tuesday, May 23.
“They have been promising to regularise the situation yet no action. As long as the problem isn’t solved we won’t leave,” she said.
She also lamented that their present pay package is too little to sustain their households. “We earn just FCFA 69,000. How much is a rent? We can’t even afford to take care of other needs.”
Messages such as “A nurse in distress is more dangerous than a soldier at the war front,” could be read on the placards brandished by the disgruntled strikers.
“We are not able to work properly due to limited equipment,” said one nurse.
“Sometimes we have critical emergency cases but we can’t handle them.”
The Yaoundé Emergency Centre popularly known by the French language acronym simply as CURY was established in June, 2015, to address the shortage of emergency medical care in Cameroon.
Neither the Director General of the health facility nor officials of the Ministry of Public Health was available for comment.
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