The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) has requested the removal of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Linden Hospital Complex after he was reported as saying that the nurses regularly abandoned their duties to engage in extramarital affairs.
“The CEO’s false and deliberately misleading accusations of nurses abandoning their post is most irresponsible, inappropriate, and unprofessional behaviour of a senior public officer,” the union said in a letter to Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony.
CEO Rudolph Small has been reported as telling an online media house that nurses at the LHC sign in for their shifts and then leave to visit their “Sweet Man.”
According to the GPSU, the allegations that the nurses were engaging in extramarital affairs are scandalous and expose the officer, his office and agency to litigation.
“His irresponsible conduct is likely to cause serious disruptions in families associated with healthcare workers nationwide and increase domestic violence,” they said.
The letter, seen by Stabroek News, was sent to Anthony yesterday.
It repeatedly stressed that the nurses of LHC had lost confidence in Small’s ability to effectively carry out the functions of his office and called for the minister to “take appropriate action with dispatch”.
Asked during an emergency press conference yesterday if a public apology from the CEO would constitute “appropriate action,” GPSU President Patrick Yarde said no.
“The action taken must be more serious than an apology. In a health institution, there must be a team approach…which requires members to have confidence in each other. The nurses have expressed clearly that they have lost confidence in him and so has the GPSU. The union wrote the Minister of Health asking for him to take appropriate action, which we hope will result in the separation of the CEO from the institution,” he explained.
Yarde was keen to note that GPSU is not calling for Small to be fired since it cannot advocate for any persons to be unemployed during the current pandemic but stressed that the officer must be separated from his current post.
Small, meanwhile, has offered the affected nurses an apology.
A video shared with Stabroek News of a meeting between the CEO and nursing staff saw him declare that it was never his intention to besmirch the character of any nurse.
“I am ashamed of how the article was written and how it sought to portray my nurses [as it is] not a true reflection of how I see the nursing staff of Linden Hospital,” Small read to a chorus of disbelief.
Small sought to deflect blame onto the reporter who conducted the interview, claiming that his words were said in jest and misconstrued for a sensationalism and social media clicks. He, however, said that he would accept full responsibility for the words the “purported journalist” attributed to him because he was part of the conversation and asked that the nurses look not at his words but at his actions moving forward.
The nurses, however, were not satisfied.
“It shows what was in your heart,” one nurse is heard saying, while another added that she cannot accept the apology as the words have already caused problems in her home.
“My husband is asking me who is the ‘Sweet Man’ I going to see when I leave home to go to work. Do you feel it is fair I have to defend myself for coming to work? ”she asked
Another nurse pointed out that since they are often away from their phones while working, they now face a long term danger of domestic violence.
“We are going to need social workers to help with those nurses who will be facing these problems…if I’m away from my phone and my husband is calling and I can’t answer what will be waiting for me at home? This is not something an apology will fix, this is long term. It’s gone worldwide,” she lamented.
