SRC Stops Free Health Services

The Nurses Service Supervisor of the SRC Clinic and a partial view of the clinic 

The Management of the Salala Rubber Cooperation or SRC has stopped all free health services offered to community dwellers residing in the company’s operational areas and its environs.

The Disclosure was made recently by the Nurses Service Supervisor of the SRC Clinic on the SRC Plantation in District Number Five, Margibi County.

According to Mr. Emmanuel Saye, residents of the area not in the employ of the company are now required to pay for all services at the clinic. Mr. Saye indicated that the clinic now operates in two categories – provision of services to cooperate workers of the company and their dependents and services to the community.

He said initially besides registration, all services at the clinic were free for the community, but everything was changed by the management of the company, saying, however, that service charge for community dwellers was affordable and that the community was coping with the decision.

He noted that if the fees were exorbitant, community dwellers would have shy away. Saye – also Secretary General of the SRC Staff Association, maintained that the management thought it wise to restructure the health sector of the company as a result of the constraints with which it is faced, including the reduction in the price of rubber on the world market, as well as limited logistics, among others. As a result of the decision, Saye averred, the third working shift of the clinic was on stand-by. He said there was only an ambulance at the clinic for emergency.

He commended the management of the company for ensuring the existence of such a clinic that attends to the health needs of the community and workers of the Salala Rubber Company.

By: Ramsey N. Singbeh, Jr. from Margibi County-Edited by George Barpeen