Hospital boss unaware of planned nurses’ boycott

 PORT Moresby General Hospital chief executive officer Grant Muddle says he is unaware of any boycott organised by nurses today.

Muddle was responding to a threat by members of the PNG Nurses Association at the hospital to boycott work today if Muddle did not approve their studies at the University of PNG.

“It’s disappointing that we would like to send everybody to school. However, the Government of the day can’t. We just don’t have the money,” Muddle told The National. 

Hospital Incentive Care Unit manager Wendy Dane said the nurses training had been budgeted by the Department of Health and their applications were endorsed by the hospital management. Dane claimed that Muddle did not approve them.

“We know that the Government has budgets for training and this should be in the budget for our training. “He (Muddle) says he has not planned that for this year. We feel that this is very unfair,” Dane said.

“PMGH is a training hospital for nurses around the country and we have always had a year’s training at UPNG. It’s just this year that we are hearing from our CEO that there is a budget deficit.”

She said the nurses had approached their union to take up the matter with Muddle. 

If he maintains his stand, they will boycott work, Dane said.

“We already got our acceptance letters from UPNG and we were in the process of paying our school fees to go for studies. We only found out that PMGH cannot sponsor students and they’ve asked us to pay our own tuition fees and also to go on leave without pay,” she said.

“We had a meeting with the chief executive officer on Tuesday and he stood by his decision.”