Staff protest outside the Nabih Berri Governmental Hospital in Nabatieh. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Employees, including nurses, at the Nabih Berri Governmental Hospital in Nabatieh, warned during a sit-in on Thursday in front of the health facility’s entrance to denounce deteriorating working conditions that they would escalate to an open-ended strike if their demands go unmet.
Here is what we know:
• The staff demanded to receive half of their salary during the first 10 days of the month as they blocked the road leading to the hospital for five hours on Thursday in protest, the state-run National News Agency reported.
• The protesting staff warned in a statement of an escalation, threatening to no longer receive patients in the hospital's emergency rooms. They also warned that they would halt work in external departments, such as clinics, laboratories and the coronavirus vaccination center.
• The hospital’s staff warned of an eventual total closure of all departments and of an open-ended strike if their demands go unmet.
• Employees of several public hospitals, including the Saida Governmental Hospital, have repeatedly demonstrated over the past year, calling on concerned entities to assist them during Lebanon’s ongoing socio-economical crisis, which has seen the national currency lose more than 90 percent of its value against the US dollar.