Former Fort England Psychiatric Hospital CEO Dr Roger Walsh has failed in his Labour Court bid to review the health department’s decision to move him sideways to another senior position in Bhisho.
But, while the court found for the health department in terms of the law, it lambasted both the department for its failure to support Walsh and the health-related trade union members for their violent, intimidatory and illegal behaviour.
Walsh’s court papers painted a frightening picture of Fort England which is the Eastern Cape’s premier psychiatric hospital. It services both the most vulnerable as well as some of the most criminally dangerous state patients.
The papers suggest a hospital in disarray with patient care on the decline in the face of unruly and violent staff.
When Walsh was appointed in 2012, he clamped down on absenteeism, lazy staff who slept on the job, and abuse of overtime and leave. He also put a stop to staff running their private businesses from the premises during working hours. This did not go down well with the staff. It resulted in a staff revolt, wildcat strikes, unlawful pickets and violence.
Port Elizabeth Labour Court judge Andre van Niekerk lashed out at the department for its failure to support Walsh in the face of staff members’ campaign of what he termed vilification, harassment and intimidation.
“The facts disclose a relentless campaign to oust [Walsh].”
He said two investigations initiated by the department had found Walsh had managed the institution “by the book”. But instead of getting support from the department it had opted to placate the unions that sought to vilify him.
He said the trade unions operating in the public health sector – including the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa), National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (Nupsaw) and the Public Servants’ Association (PSA) – had sought only to promote their own interests through “brutal acts of thuggery”. Some of their members, including shop stewards, deserved to be summarily dismissed for this.
He said the department had at all times effectively allowed them to dictate employment policy, cravenly capitulating to their unlawful demands.
By allowing itself to be held hostage to a concerted campaign of violence, and intimidation conducted by power- hungry union officials the department had compromised any semblance of a system of industrial relations.
As a result, the hospital patients’ lives had been reduced to the philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ description of life without state structure and controls – “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.
But, judge Van Niekerk said that the unlawful behaviour of the unions which had contributed to the decision to move Walsh did not render the decision to transfer him invalid.
The department had taken into consideration all factors including the persistent interruption of services at the hospital and its effect on staff, patients and the hospital itself.
He found that the decision to transfer Walsh was not irrational, arbitrary or malicious. He dismissed Walsh’s application to review the department’s decision to transfer him to another post...