Talks over ambulance drivers at a standstill

Union Haddiema Maghqudin general secretary Gejtu Vella said yesterday the government had stopped negotiating with the union over a claim for an additional allowance for ambulance drivers at St Luke`s Hospital.

At at a news conference at the site of the new hospital at Tal Qroqq, Mr Vella said the union would be putting all its weight behind ambulance drivers until their claim was settled.

The UHM, he said, had been trying to negotiate a Lm3.75 weekly allowance because of the additional work drivers had to carry out when they pick up patients, particularly those involved in serious accidents.

The drivers had attended a three-day first aid course some weeks ago, though Mr Vella believes that they should receive more training.

There were times, he said, when the drivers, who totalled about 50, had to rush to attend to accident victims accompanied only by porters.

They often carried out tasks that were not directly related to their job and, moreover, it would make more sense if they were trained in new skills to be able to assist paramedical staff in emergency cases, he said.

"It`s extremely important for drivers to be able to know how to use the equipment in an ambulance in case they are called upon to assist doctors and nurses.

"While the government pays a lot of lip-service to the notion of lifelong learning and optimising human resources, it is denying these norms when it comes to ambulance drivers," Mr Vella said.

The issue has been brewing since February, and the drivers are currently following a union directive not to do any overtime.

"The government is spending much more on overtime rates for other workers to fill in during the hours when ambulance drivers are not doing any overtime.

"It would have made more economic sense for the government to grant ambulance drivers the allowance they are claiming instead of needlessly spending taxpayer`s money," Mr Vella said.

"The union does not believe in the Joint Negotiating Council that the government is proposing in the Employment and Industrial Relations Bill because the JNC had not met once over the past 25 years."

Earlier, UHM president Gejtu Tanti said the union had held the news conference close to the new hospital in order to highlight the fact that the government was spending millions of liri on the physical structure of the hospital while it was being stingy with investment in human resources.