Having had several court battles under the previous regime, they are now hoping the new one would hear their lamentations. Botswana Nurses Union (BONU) has accused the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM), the Ministry of Health, and the District Health Management Team (DHMT) of adopting an approach that exploits nurses and midwives. The union said the said health workers have been subjecting to prolonged working hours without compensation, against the Employment Act and international labour best practices.
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 Court of Appeal (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. DPSM in late 2023 partly succeeded in their 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.
