Pay us our nine-month salary arrears- COVID-19 Frontline health workers tells gov’t

Frontline health workers responding to COVID-19 are demanding payment of salary arrears for the past nine months.

The workers stationed at isolation and medical centers across the country have not received payment since September last year.

The chief of operations for COVID-19 in the national ministry of health, Dr. Angelo Guop Thon says the health personnel are continuing with work as his office coordinates with the ministry of health to resolve the issue.

In a statement seen by NCMP, the Covid-19 health cadres, say they have not been paid for nine months now.

Their decision comes nearly two weeks after the Ministry of Health said it had downsized the number of health workers deployed to respond to the coronavirus pandemic across the country over inadequate funding.

Earlier, the ministry said it had cut down the number of the rapid response and surveillance teams, as well as Coronavirus homecare team to half.

It also recalled its staff deployed at Nimule border points.

According to the frontline health workers, they have not been paid their dues since September 2020.

“We are glad to inform the public that we have exhausted the administrative procedure with the ministry of Health and South Sudan National Taskforce on Covid-19 Pandemic that has resulted in loss of follow-up of patients over unfulfilled promise in demanding for our nine month incentive,” partly reads the statement.

According to the letter, they had given the Ministry of Health until Wednesday to respond, but the demand went unheard.