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…after sweetman comment about nurses
Under pressure, the Ministry of Health was forced to remove the Chief Executive Officer of the Linden Hospital Complex(LHC), Rudolph Small after he had made derogatory comments about the nurses of the hospital during an interview with a blogger.
Small was issued a letter this morning by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Malcom Watkins notifying him of his removal from the said position with immediate effect.
The letter that was issued to Small has instructed him to hand over all property of the LHC to the Region 10’s Health Officer, Gregory Harris. He is also to report to the Office of the Permanent Secretary for further guidance.
On Monday, the nurses of the LHC protested in front of the Small’s office as they made a call for his removal following the “sweet man” comment he made about the nurses employed at LHC in an interview done with a blogger on the electronic timekeeping system that Small hoped to implement at the said hospital.
This information was published in an article written by the blogger following the interview.
It is alleged that during the interview the CEO went on to say, “I intend to put a stop to this. We have some nurses who are accustomed to reporting for duty at nights…they sign in then they get away (and) go and sleep with their sweet man…(and) would come back in and sign out in the morning.”
In a press release, Small stated that at no time in the formal interview he did with the blogger, did he attribute the need for an electronic timekeeping system to be related to “the rumored behaviour of nurses or any other staff.”
However, in the press release Small admitted that he made the comments off the record during a casual conversation with the blogger after the interview.
Meanwhile, the blogger subsequently released a recording of the interview done with the CEO, in defense of himself, where Small can be heard making the “sweet man” comment on record.
Calls to remove Small from the post of CEO of the LHC were also made by the Regional Chairman of Region 10, Guyana Public Service Union and other officials of the Region.
In an interview with Village Voice News the Regional Vice Chairman of Region 10, Douglas Gittens stated that the comments made by the CEO were disrespectful to the nurses who are frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Mr. Rudolph Small was very disrespectful to women across the Region first of all and he was blatantly disrespectful to the nurses, doctors and all other workers of the LHC,” Gittens noted.
