Health staff get same pay

 HEALTH workers in church-run institutions can be rest assured that pay disparity they have been experiencing will be remedied.

This was revealed by Health Secretary Pascoe Kase at a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) inquiry into church-run health services.

There have been disparities in pay between government and church health workers, with the latter earning much lesser since independence.

Kase said the National Executive Council recently decided changes to be made to the salaries so that church health workers would be on par with their government colleagues.

He said his department had taken a long time in addressing the matter because it needed to collect information and compile evidence before the matter could be brought before the NEC for deliberation.

“Now that it is a policy, we will have to pay the church health workers the increments that were approved.

“We have included it in the 2014 health budget, but it was cut by the Treasury Department so how soon we can begin paying the recommended salaries is now a question of sourcing money.”

Kase said the department was aware of the disparities for a long time, but successive governments had not been supportive.