Nursing aides call off action

The General Workers' Union has suspended its week-long directives to nursing aides, health assistants and care workers, following an agreement with the Department of Health yesterday, the union said.

The directives were suspended from midnight last night. A meeting with the Health Department, requested by the union, is being held today to resume negotiations on the existing industrial dispute.

Yesterday's meeting served to "unblock" the situation, Louis Marsh from the government and public entities section of the GWU said.

Last Friday, the union ordered nursing aides, health assistants and care workers at state hospitals and homes for the elderly to do only food-related jobs. Their normal job includes assisting nurses in the washing and cleaning of patients and getting them out of bed.

Nurses had started to feel the pressure of the resulting extra work that the industrial action had burdened them with. The GWU had maintained it would not withdraw the directives until a meeting with the government was fixed, while on its part, the government had called on the union to suspend the directives, promising a meeting this week.