ST JAMES, Jamaica — As medical technicians, who on Monday and Tuesday took strike action at the Cornwall Regional Hospital and Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital, returned to work Wednesday morning, the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA) maintained that the industrial action did not affect emergency services.

The medical technicians stayed off the job in protest over outstanding payment of allowances.

During an interview with Observer Online, Clinical Coordinator at the WRHA, Dr Delroy Fray, disclosed that the workers are now back on the job and are moving to clear up the two-day patient backlog.

“Although they were on strike, they did all emergency and urgent cases. So it never really affected those cases, but the patients who came in from outside to have blood tests done, those were the patients who were not done,” Dr Fray said.

“They are now trying to address all of those that would have come to do what we call elective blood tests. So that’s what they are doing. So this strike did not affect the emergency or the urgent case[s]. It affected the patients who came from the clinics to have their blood tests done,” Dr Fray added.

The clinical coordinator revealed that the workers should receive the outstanding allowance payments at the end of this month.

“They will be paid this month for sure. The financial controller told me that. In fact, they wrote a letter with several points, I think, seven points. And I’ve seen a letter that was written back to them on the 27th of June, addressing all seven points. So I feel they have come to an amicable settlement,” Dr Fray said.

Efforts to get a comment from St Patrice Ennis, general secretary of the Union of Technical Administrative and Supervisory Personnel, which represents the medical technicians, proved futile. Calls to his cellular phone and WhatsApp messages went unanswered.

— Horace Hines