Lao Doctors, Nurses Demand Overtime Pay Owed For Work Containing COVID
Over 800 health-care workers in southern provinces of Laos are calling on authorities to pay them for extra hours worked this year in hospitals and quarantine centers while trying to control the spread of coronavirus, according to sources in the one-party communist state.
However, official sources say that only regular salaries and special disbursements for disease control will be paid as Laos struggles to keep its economy on track amid business shutdowns and sharp reductions in the collection of taxes.
In the Outhoumphone district of Savannakhet province, 110 doctors and nurses have not yet been paid for overtime hours worked since March at centers set up to house over 3,000 Lao workers returning from Thailand, sources say.
“I haven’t received any overtime pay since December,” one nurse told RFA’s Lao Service on July 1.
RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Manichanh Phimphachanh. Written in English by Richard Finney
