Linden’s Leaders Lost Their Saltiness

TRADE UNIONIST MAURICE BUTTERS BLASTED THE PATHETIC LEADERSHIP
of some Lindeners for causing weeks of promising protest by Linden Hospital Complex (LHC)
nurses to fizzle.
The nurses weeks-long protest to oust controversial LHC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Rudy
Small ended on a whimper because leaders in the bauxite-mining municipality abandoned them
because of more convenient political expediency, Butters claimed.
“The protest didn’t end well. The nurses were left alone…because politics got into it. As long as
the politics gets into the game then you know what happens, nothing comes out of it” Butters
told www.aroundtheregions.com.
LHC nurses took industrial action after CEO Small was caught on tape accusing them of nightly
sexual escapes, some had to be extra-maritally, by escaping from the institution when they
should have been on duty.
At first, Small publicly denied making the salacious accusations, but when this media house
played the relevant section of the tape, Small reversed himself with a new claim that it was just
banter never intended for public consumption.
Then Public Works Minister, Bishop Juan Edghill, came out publicly backing Small’s original
falsehoods.
Before the LHC fiasco, the government was forced twice to transfer Small for similar verbal
indiscretions targeting female employees. First from Leonora Hospital, then from the Diamond
Diagnostic Centre.
Health Ministry’s Permanent Secretary (PS) Malcolm Watkins had moved Small as CEO at the
height of the nurses’ protest, but he was reinstated less than 24-hours afterwards by Health

Minister Dr. Frank Anthony, who never uttered a word during the controversy. Prime Minister,
Mark Phillips, was the only government official who spoke publicly on the industrial brouhaha
created by Small.
When he did, PM Phillips, a retired army officer, supported the nurses’ cause.
Several politicians have quietly visited the bauxite-mining town embracing the garrulous, but
loose-lipped Small, away from the media’s glare.
“There were politicians who supported the maintenance of Small, none of them has come
forward to say anything condemning what he did. Other than the Prime Minister saying that he
supported the nurses’ position, no other person did. Edghill never supported the nurses, and in
actuality, supported Small’s position. So, this is how the politics got into it,” Butters said.
He was also frustrated with former Public Health Minister, Mrs. Volda Lawrence, who is yet to
fulfil her promise to help the nurses.
“We never got the promise that she had made,” Butters complained.
The leadership in Linden has lost its relevance and the populace has lost confidence in them,
trade unionist Butters told www.aroundtheregions.com
“They could have done more but those chaps are not ready. In my opinion, they cannot get
anybody to come out and support them in any protest. They have not put themselves in a position
to dominate and or maintain relevancy and it is they who locked themselves in that position by
being unable to demand anything,” Butters counselled.
He accused Republic Bank (Guyana) of foot-dragging on an application for a special account for
friendly persons to donate in a bid to relieve the financial hardships nurses are facing since the
Health Ministry has been deducting moneys from salaries of those who had joined the protest
line.
“Over a month now we cannot secure a positive response from the bank regarding our request to
open the account (at) Republic Bank. Had we been able to we would have been able to deposit

monies into the nursing fund geared to recover some of the monies that they would have lost
during the protest…” Butters explained.
“We had a discussion with the nurses and explained the situation. They know that it’s not
that the Union didn’t want to help but just that the system is preventing it from
happening,” Butters explained.