Members of the Health and Allied Workers Indaba Trade Union (Haitu) are set to march to Dr Phophi Ramathuba’s offices on Friday.
According to the union, the march is to demand that the MEC fill all outstanding vacancies in the province.
Part of the march is also to demand that the MEC stop sabotaging healthcare services in the province and ensure that Covid-19 contract workers are given permanent posts.
There have been concerns over shortage of nurses in Limpopo, with the unions saying the province was failing to fill vacant positions.
In March, Ramathuba announced that all clinics would operate on a 24 hour basis.
However, Haitu’s general secretary Lerato Mthunzi said this was not possible when the department continued to terminate employment contracts resulting in shortage of nurses and other key staff in hospitals across the province.
“How is this going to be achieved when the province keeps terminating contracts, and has failed to fill outstanding vacancies?
“There are massive staff shortages in all hospitals and clinics and this contributes to very long queues. Members of the community get frustrated because they are not being served and they take it out on workers,” Mthunzi said.
Mthunzi said some of the health workers were forced to work under demanding working conditions due to staff shortages across Limpopo hospitals with more than 1200 unfilled vacant posts.
“Our members are also collapsing under the pressure because they cannot cope. This year the department terminated 706 nursing posts in the province, which worsened service delivery, while at the same time, there are 1200 vacant posts in the province.
“The very same MEC will be attacking and blaming nurses for poor service, when it is the department that is failing. Workers are scapegoated for deliberate decisions taken by the health department to sabotage healthcare,” she said.
Mthunzi said the union was concerned about the continued exploitation of healthcare workers in the province adding that during the march, the union would hand over its demands to the MEC.
“We will also demand an end to the rampant exploitation of workers in the clinics and hospitals. The Limpopo department of health is failing to solve this crisis and it is resulting in poor services being rendered to the community,” she said.