Those healthcare workers who do not comply with COVID-19 protocols and are barred from entry to the workplace will not be paid. This is according to Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony.
“The vaccine is not mandatory…you have a choice…the other option is to get tested…you show the negative result and you come to work…and if you don’t you will be marked absent and not paid,” Anthony told reporters on the sidelines of an event yesterday.
The Minister maintains that the government’s actions are legal because it is not “forcing anybody to take the vaccine”.
“I see all the talk of ‘my body, my choice’ and people referencing the constitution but as far as I am aware the constitution talks about the right to life and the vaccine will protect your life. Individual rights sometimes have to yield to the collective…that happens all across the world and that’s how you get herd immunity,” the Minister said, adding that more than 50% of the adult population has chosen to be .
The Minister made this comment while scores of health care workers from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) remained blocked from entering the workplace.
Following the expiration of a moratorium on the July 29 COVID-19 protocols, the medical institutions issued memorandums directing that workers must be vaccinated or regularly tested.
A memo from the GPHC seen by Stabroek News explains that employees who are not vaccinated are required to provide a negative PCR test result upon entering the GPHC compound every week from a Ministry of Health authorized private lab where the cost is borne by the staff.
Critics have argued that the measure represents undue coercion since the salaries of these workers cannot support regular testing.
The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) and Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) have both contended that the Ministry as the employer should pay for the tests in line with the provisions of Section 47 (3) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (Cap 99:10) which requires that they provide free testing for the employee.
Speaking with reporters outside GPHC yesterday GPSU Vice President Dawn Gardener reiterated that vaccination must remain a choice. She bemoaned the fact that the PPP/C government has made no attempt to engage the union on its policies.
Doctor Gerald Forde, one of the staff members who was barred from entering the GPHC compound also stressed that vaccination must remain a choice.
He reminded that Guyanese law prohibits administering any medication without the consent of the patient.
“We have exercised our right not to be vaccinated…and now they have barred us from working. The same place where we worked all last year without vaccination they have now prevented us from accessing,” he lamented.
