Me­chan­ics at the Pub­lic Health Ser­vices De­part­ment un­der the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion stopped work­ing Mon­day and yes­ter­day, over what they called se­ri­ous health and safe­ty con­cerns at their Sig­nal Hill ser­vic­ing cen­tre.

Se­nior welder at the site’s garage Shel­don Coop­er said the work­men have been com­plain­ing about out­dat­ed, in­suf­fi­cient, and in some cas­es haz­ardous equip­ment. But Coop­er said all at­tempts to have the is­sues re­solved through both PNM and the cur­rent To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly ex­ec­u­tive have been un­suc­cess­ful.

“Last week, they gave us a pur­chase or­der to go and get six boots. Present­ly in the garage there are 14 men. We want to know what hap­pen to the rest of gears. We not ac­cept­ing that, this prob­lem has been go­ing on too, too long.

“This is not any­thing for po­lit­i­cal mileage, this is safe­ty for the work­ers. Present­ly the work­ers are not hap­py,” the se­nior welder ex­plained.

He said the garage does not have a di­ag­nos­tic ma­chine, a safe ramp, safe­ty tools and PPE, leav­ing work­ers at risk each day.

“We have one ser­vice jack for a ten-ton truck and it is a two-ton jack and that is a haz­ard. All how we try to reach the sec­re­tary and the oth­ers we can’t get them.”

Coop­er said no prop­er fa­cil­i­ties are avail­able for the break pe­ri­od and so the work­men are made to stand in the kitchen area or sit on the out­side in the garage to have lunch.

He said the work­ers are dis­ap­point­ed that they are treat­ed with what they be­lieved is scant cour­tesy es­pe­cial­ly when they are re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing ve­hi­cles from over four THA di­vi­sions and en­ti­ties un­der the THA are prop­er­ly ser­viced.

Health Sec­re­tary Dr Faith B Yis­rael said, “I’m await­ing a full re­port on what was re­port­ed.”

She added, “Please note though that most of what was re­port­ed isn’t ac­cu­rate, and the long-stand­ing is­sues are be­ing ad­dressed. The en­tire com­pound in Sig­nal Hill needs to be re­fur­bished—a de­tailed plan to do it in phas­es is be­ing de­vel­oped as we speak.”