- The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) says the violent actions of workers at the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital are a clear violation of human rights and are morally unjustifiable.
Workers protested over performance bonuses on Thursday and trashed the hospital's hallways, bringing operations to a standstill.
The commission has condemned the violence and urged striking workers to refrain from infringing on the rights of patients in need of medical care.
The commission's Gushwell Brooks: "Even though we do have the right to organise ourselves into unions, to take strike action, as well as to protest, those actions shouldn't infrnge on the rights of other people and yesterday's actions definitely did."
At the same time, the Democratic Alliance (DA)'s Jack Bloom has called on the Gauteng Health Department to get it's finances in order, saying the situation has now put the lives of patients at risk.
"They have to address this issue of paying workers on time. It's not just performance bonuses. I get complaints all the time that doctors haven't been paid over time, nurses haven been their uniform allowance..."

Source: EWN