Apr 23 - Grand Home Care Informed That GHA Will Be Terminating 10 Positions At St Bernard's Hospital
Grand Home Care (GHC) says they were contacted on their out of hours emergency number by a GHA member of Staff on Saturday 14th April at approximately 0930hrs. During the call, GHC were informed that the GHA would be terminating 10 positions with immediate effect. These positions are support workers carrying out their duties at St Bernard’s Hospital. The reason for the terminations, as communicated to GHC, was that the GHA was doing away with agency workers.
A spokesperson for Grand Home Care (GHC) said: "Terminating our contractual arrangements without reasonable notice, via the on call phone, out of hours and without written confirmation, is detrimental to the well-being of the employees and the remaining employees within the GHA. It also does not allow GHC to manage these terminations effectively and causes distress and financial hardship both for the Employee and GHC. Given the spate of terminations we requested that Government agree to a reasonable termination period, to ensure a smooth termination and continuity of care.
"The Government of Gibraltar terminated these positions without providing GHC with any notice. We have to date not received any formal written confirmation, nor received any reply to our letter addressed to Mrs Evelyn Cervan, head of GHA, requesting such information. This termination is further proof of the Governments appalling conduct, which shows contempt and utter disregard for both GHC and the employees. We have also asked Mrs Cervan to address a serious issue concerning other GHC employees. It has been brought to our attention that our employees are being harassed to resign under fear of losing their current positions of employment. We understand and seen evidence from our staff that a member of the GHA management is recommending to them that if they wish to retain their positions within the GHA, they are to resign and seek employment with MedDoc Healthcare Limited. This would not be of such concern to our employees if there was no truth to the matter, however we see how consistently the positions are awarded to MedDoc and where the retained employees are kept within the same position.
"This completely contradicts the reasons communicated to us on Saturday, with regard the doing away with agency workers in the GHA. As we have expressed on countless occasions to Government we remain at their disposition to meet with them, address these matters of grave concern and minimise the hardship suffered by GHC and their employees. We are yet to hear from them on this or on any matter. As has become customary one should now expect a Government strongly worded response branding GHC behaviour as deplorable. But now, the Gibraltarian community should now be a little clearer on whether Governments words can ever again be believed against the background of such shameful behaviour towards Grand Home Care and its employees, the lack of information and their silence regarding the large number of transfers to MedDoc."
YGTV reached out to the Government of Gibraltar earlier today for a reply and the Government said: "Grand Home Care was one of many labour-only subcontractors to the Government. This means that Government would contract labour from Grand Home Care as and when required, for example to cover absences. No labour-employer relationship exists between the Government and GHC employees because their direct employer is Grand Home Care, whilst the Government is a customer of Grand Home Care. This is standard procedure and Grand Home Care were treated in exactly the same way as any other company that subcontracts labour to the Government. Grand Home Care is behaving as if they did not know this and are deliberately trying to misrepresent the situation for their own benefit."
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