BONU, MOH fight reaches Parliament
Innocent Selatlhwa | Monday February 24, 2025 13:08
The two health stakeholders have been at each other’s throats for many issues but then made up. The “call to duty” debacle has dragged on for several years with both parties having a fair share of court victories until a Court of Appeal (CoA) judgment that left them still in disagreement on how to proceed. The war escalated through recent exchanges over press statements.
BONU earlier this week expressed “deepest dismay and concern over the misleading response” given by Minister of Health, Dr Stephen Modise, regarding the issue of unpaid standby allowances for nurses and midwives. The union is of the view that the minister’s statement made in Parliament misrepresented the facts and failed to acknowledge the unfair treatment of nurses compared to other health cadres. During a recent parliamentary session, legislator for Kanye West Victor Phologolo had asked the minister whether he was aware that nurses and midwives across all public health facilities work on standby without receiving a standby allowance, while other cadres are compensated.
He also wanted to know what plans, if any, are in place to ensure that nurses and midwives receive this allowance. In response, Modise said health service provision by its nature requires continuity and availability of necessary personnel and resources 24 hours a day. In that regard and depending on the status of the health facility, he said work arrangements are such that some health employees, (including nurses and midwives) are required to stand ready and available (on standby) to give service outside normal working hours.
“We are, therefore, aware that nurses and midwives scheduled to do emergency on-call duties remain on standby waiting to be called to attend medical emergencies,” he said. Further, Modise said public service employees under permanent and pensionable terms of employment are not compensated for being on standby except those from the former Industrial Class workers who enjoy some standby allowance as a legacy benefit on terms collectively agreed with their respective union before the introduction of the Public Service Act No. 30 of 2008. The minister said government and BONU have been engaging on the matter to find ways on how to compensate nurses and midwives subjected to call for medical emergencies. However, he said it is worth noting that currently, nurses and midwives scheduled to be on standby to attend to medical emergencies on rest days are compensated with 30% commuted overtime allowance and a paid day off following call for normal working days and two days off for weekend On-Call. “Over and above, they are paid calculated overtime for any hours worked in access of the 30% of the commuted overtime allowance,” he said. BONU has since dismissed the minister’s response. They state that in his reply, Modise falsely claimed that nurses and midwives scheduled for standby duty on rest days are compensated through a 30% commuted overtime allowance and a paid day off. “This is incorrect. The minister must not mislead the public by deliberately confusing excess overtime hours with standby duty.
The reality is that while other health cadres receive standby or call allowances, nurses and midwives are unjustly excluded,” they wrote. BONU further stated that the minister’s response is devoid of truth. The union strongly believes that this misinformation is a deliberate tactic by the Ministry to continue exploiting nurses and midwives. “We urge the minister to take control of his ministry, conduct independent research, and engage directly with BONU leadership, which has been consistently requesting a meeting with him. “It is unacceptable for the minister to rely solely on technocrats who appear intent on misleading him. The minister must desist from telling the public inaccurate information purporting to have met BONU leadership,” they wrote. For clarity, they advised the minister to familiarise himself with court rulings that reaffirm nurses’ rights regarding working hours from the CoA and Industrial Court. These judgments, they said make it clear that working hours only apply when a nurse or midwife is physically present in a health facility attending to patients. “There is no legal obligation forcing nurses and midwives to be on standby during their rest periods,” they stated. BONU advised its members that standby duty without remuneration is purely voluntary. They encouraged nurses and midwives to use their personal time as they see fit whether for travel, rest, or personal activities without feeling bound to unpaid standby expectations. To that end, BONU has resolved that it is in the best interest of its members to adopt a strict adherence to the judgment of the CoA on the ‘Call to Duty’ policy until such a time that the ministry agrees to negotiate over the development of a framework and guidelines and to compensate the members accordingly.
The Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM) in late 2023 partly succeeded in its pursuit to quash an Industrial Court order that would spell the discontinuation of the ‘Call to Duty’ for nurses or pay overtime as per a prior Industrial Court judgment by Justice Galesite Baruti. A panel of three CoA justices Modiri Letsididi, Goemekgabo Tebogo-Maruping, and Tshegofatso Mogomotsi, concurred in a ruling that the employer’s appeal succeeds in part in respect of two parts of the Industrial Court order, which must reflect that the time spent on call by the nurses and midwives be regarded as working time and where appropriate as overtime if they are required to be physically present at the health facility. The government, through the DPSM, lost the case against the nurses and decided to lodge an appeal in an attempt to cling to the long-standing ‘Call to Duty’ practice, which the nurses have argued is an abuse they have endured for a long time. The CoA made the determination that there is a distinction between active and non-active on-call duty and by virtue of this distinction, nurses and midwives who are rostered to be on-call, are only considered to be working when they are physically present at their workstations. Essentially, the time that nurses and midwives spend away from the workstation whilst waiting to be called for duty is not deemed to work and as such, they are not remunerated or compensated for such time.