One day after the Chief Executive Officer of the Linden Hospital Rudolph Small issued dismissal letters to 27 employees of the hospital, he has been instructed by the Ministry of Health to recall the dismissals and begin issuing new contracts for the employees.
The firings sent the small community of Linden into an uproar on Thursday with Regional and Town Officials planning a protest action for today. The protest was called off early this morning after the Ministry of Health’s direction to the CEO that he recalls the dismissal letters.
Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, said once the Ministry learned of the CEO’s decision, he was contacted and told to rescind the letters.
“When the Ministry learned about it, we reached out to the CEO and asked him to rescind the letters, so as of last night, all those letters should’ve been rescinded so nobody is going home, so I just want to make sure that people understand that. We’ll expect that the contracts for all those persons will be renewed and would be renewed for the usual duration,” the Minister told the Department of Public Information.
Many of those who were given dismissal letters were attached to the maintenance and cleaning departments of the hospital.
Region 10 Chairman Deron Adams today said while he is pleased that good sense has prevailed in the matter, he believes a full review of the CEO’s performance on the job needs to be carried out.
The Regional Chairman also noted that while the CEO has been making moves to fire employees, he is not moving with the same pace to hire persons for existing vacancies at the hospital.
Last year, the Linden Hospital CEO landed in hot water when he locked nurses and doctors out of the hospital because of their refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19. There have been calls since then for him to be replaced at the hospital.
Before that, he was heavily criticized for telling a reporter that nurses at the hospital would stay away from their jobs to go visit their “sweetman”.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login