Healthcare workers in Liberia threatened to go on strike on Monday after the government failed to provide them a higher hazard pay and safer working conditions at the height of the Ebola crisis. The disease has already killed two doctors since the outbreak.
The Liberia National Health Workers Association will represent 10,000 workers in the strike. The group requested a $1,200 monthly hazard pay, an amount nearly three times higher than the current $435 per month, according to the Wall Street Journal. Some doctors, nurses, and other medical staffs wouldn't want to go to the hospitals and care centers as they were not provided proper protection by the government.
Union leader George Williams clarified that the workers are willing to negotiate, because they know that the region currently has an enormous financial setback due to the Ebola outbreak. The workers decided to push through with the strike plan after the government declined to meet with their group representatives on Oct. 10 to discuss the issue. Some workers are receiving a hazard pay of only $80 per month.
"Health workers do not want to go to strike, but they have been provoked to go to strike," Mr. Williams said. "Our members are dying...We cannot allow people who are saving lives to die while saving lives."
The healthcare workers will be abandoning their posts by 12 midnight on Monday, which could endanger the lives of hundreds of patients in the care centers. Liberia Deputy Health Minister Matthew Flomo said that the government had an agreement with the workers regarding the hazard pay, but Williams denied it, Reuters reported.
The workers appealed to the public to understand where they are coming from and to make the government accountable for the consequence of their actions.
"The public is aware that health workers are dying because they are not protected. Nobody is supposed to die while protecting lives, we have been calling on the government to give us protective gear but they are not doing so," he said.
