Students protest against Bara staff

ABOUT 500 student nurses staged a protest inside Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital yesterday demanding the removal of three managers, whom they claim intimidate and fail students.

They were demanding the removal of the college's general nursing sciences head Nompumelelo Mngoma, psychiatry head Ethel Radebe and student affairs head Zodwa Behune.

In response, the Gauteng health department lodged a court interdict to stop the protest.

The college was supposed to have opened on January 6, but students have been bunking classes and refusing to work.

The protest follows a letter of complaint that the Students Representative Council sent to Gauteng health department in 2011, demanding the redeployment of the three departmental heads.

But, they said their demands were not met and the department's failure to attend a scheduled meeting with the SRC on Monday this week is being seen by the students "as a slap in the face".

"The mandate from the students is that these people should not come back to the college because they threaten and intimidate students," SRC spokesman Karabelo Sempe said yesterday.

"They do not follow proper processes in awarding course extensions. We feel that the health department is also dragging its feet in solving this matter."

Gauteng health department spokesman Simon Zwane said that the three had been removed in 2011.

However, the managers then took the department to the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) and won the case through arbitration.

Also, in the arbitration process it was decided that the HODs must go back to work. "There is nothing else we can do," Zwane said.

"We have interdicted the protest and we want order at the hospital. They (students) did not get permission for the protest."

But, the students are adamant.

Said SRC's academic officer Ramotsoge Nkadimeng: "We aren't going back to classes. We are going to deal with this like a bulldog dealing with a bone." -sifilel@sowetan.co.za