By: Audrey John
The A-Z medium had discovered how the management of the Al-Sheefa Arab Clinics in Circular, Freetown and at other parts of the country had allegedly employed an unqualified fellow Egyptian Pharmacist and under paying untrained female workers. According to investigations, the management of the said clinics didn’t only refuse to name the Egyptian Pharmacist for reason believed to be a hidden agenda for personal aggrandizements or gains.
This medium was opportune to speak to a traumatized female employee that explained how she was employed as an under graduate nurse by the management of the Al-sheefa Arab Clinic since 2020 but she was still receiving below minimum wage until her recent dismissal from one of the much talked about clinics.
This is completely against the Sierra Leone Labour laws and international best practices. According to our independent investigations, the management of the Al-Sheefa Arab Clinic later decided to employ a qualified Guinean doctor with over ten years’ experience.
The unqualified Egyptian imported doctor, whose name will be mentioned in our next edition didn’t allow the qualified black Guinean doctor to do or performing his professional job.
Meaning, after the qualified Guinean doctor had issued a medical prescription to a sick person, the unqualified Egyptian imported doctor would then change the prescription issued by the certified African doctor and issued the medical prescription made by the said untrained Egyptian pharmacist to seriously sick clients.
Furthermore, this medium gathered that as a result of the abnormal treatment regularly administered to patients under the administration of the said imported Egyptian Pharmacist by the Alsheefa Arab Clinic.
Patients are complaining on various complications after going through treatments, because the unqualified Egyptian imported Pharmacist senselessly practices had allegedly impacted negatively to the health of sick people, especially vulnerable women and girls.
Despite the issue of marginalizing female nurse employees, the Al-sheefa Clinic further accused of not working in accordance with the set aside rules and regulations by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS) as to how a private clinic should be operated.
This medium also discovered that the Alsheefa is over working some female employees with the assertions that they are not qualified medical practitioners but are employed only to serve as caretakers, which means since the Alsheefa can’t afford to hire the services of qualified doctors to run the clinic as required by law, they preferred to employ untrained doctors and nurses just to maintain their habit of underpaying and over working citizens in the name of employment.
What is most disheartening in this whole episode, the said clinic usually sack workers without end of service benefits, not to talk about NASSIT subscription for workers. The management of Alsheefa Arab Clinics also said to have questions to answer with regards the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) obligation, had immigration issues with foreign employees and end of service benefits for sacked workers to settle.
Our investigation revealed that the management of the Egyptian Clinics lacked respect for local employees. Contacting the Supervisor of the Al-sheefa Arab Clinic that identified himself as speaking on behalf of the Al-sheefa Arab Clinic, Mr. Ahmed confirmed that he represented the Arab Clinics, accepting that he employed the crying female worker who had served the company for over eight months consecutively.
This so-called unqualified Sierra Leonean nurse was relocated to the Model Clinic as an experienced Secretary.