Paulina Quintao – Members of Parliament (MPs) have criticized health directors who they say are prone to walking off the job during office hours.

MP Domingas Alves da Silva, alias Bilou Mali, urged the Ministry of Health to ensure its public servants were at their office for their rostered hours.

"In Viqueque I witnessed with my own eyes that it was the deputy director who was working while the director was planting bananas and farming," she said in Parliament.

She said the Ministry of Health should warn its workers that such attitudes towards work would mean patients would not receive effective medical treatment.

MP da Silva said the problem of health workers abandoning patients to run personal errands was not confined to Viqueque. MP Antonio Ximenes Serpa agreed health directors should not leave patients unattended.

"Many health workers say they have to visit their families as a reason to leave work, therefore it is necessary to post them where they live so the treatment of the public is not affected," he said.

He said district-based civil servants often disregarded their office hours which run from 8.30am to 5.30pm. Some came in at 10am, left at midday and did not return for the afternoon, he said.

MP Serpa said doctors were also guilty of leaving their posts without permission.

"Patients come to the health center at 2 in the afternoon but there is nobody there," he said. "Sometimes the lives of the patients were not able to be saved because help came too late".

Health Minister Sergio da Costa Lobo acknowledged the issue and said some district-based health staff regularly left their offices to travel to Dili.

A teleconference system had been set up this year to allow district-based health directors to participate in national meetings without travelling to Dili, he said.

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/health/12780-mp-health-directors-slackers