ELECTIVE surgeries were yesterday postponed at government hospitals islandwide and only emergency services were being offered, as the strike by medical technologists continued yesterday.

The health ministry said that while blood donations continued to be collected, no processing was done yesterday at the Blood Bank because of the absence of the medical technologists.

"Two hundred and fifty-eight units of blood are yet to be processed, not including today's (yesterday's) donations and another 58 units are partially processed and therefore cannot be released to hospitals," the health ministry said in a statement. Available blood supplies, it said, were being reserved for emergencies.

The medical technologists, who went on strike last Thursday, said a recent job reclassification of scientific officers in the health ministry caused an anomaly, and said they want to be paid on par with these scientific officers who do similar duties.

Meanwhile, a ministry spokesperson said the defiance of a back-to-work order by the medical technologists has been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) who had began to collect statements yesterday concerning the breach of the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act.

Meanwhile, Reg Ennis, general secretary of the Union of Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Personnel (UTASP), which holds bargaining rights for the 104 medical technologists said yesterday that the strike would continue.

"The medical technologists have nothing presented to them by Government to allow them to call off the strike, therefore, the strike is still in force," Ennis said, adding that "threatening words" from government would not frighten the workers.

"We are not satisfied that government is prepared to settle with us. All the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance are doing is threatening the medical technologists with loss of jobs and jail sentence, instead of settling down to correct the anomalies.

"The medical technologists are not afraid of Government threats and we will not call off the strike until Government is prepared to settle with us. Until then, things remain the same," Ennis said yesterday.

At the same time, chief delegate Leford Bennett said medical technologists at the University Hospital yesterday decided to stand in solidarity with them. "They have decided not to process any blood samples sent to them from any other institution," he said.

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World