Some 120 maintenance and cleaning workers halted garbage collection and maintenance of medical machines Sunday for non-payment of their wages at King Fahd Hospital in Madina, suspending normal hospital operation and moving the Madina Emirate. Other workers were seen picketing outside the hospital. A committee composed of the Emirate, the police, and the Madina Health Department has started investigating the case to call back the strikers to work. Authorities said that their sub-contracted company has fallen behind on wage payment for a few months. A few operation rooms at the hospital were out of service. Ibrahim Al-Ruwaithi was scheduled to undergo a surgery Sunday, but it was canceled. “The operation room was not ready,” said his uncle Hatim Al-Ruwaithi. The Madina Health Department has sought the help of cleaning workers from ten government hospitals and 35 polyclinics across the city to do the cleaning work at King Fahd Hospital until the strikers resume work. Past-dues of the workers will be deducted from the contract amount signed with their operating company, said Aqil Al-Ghamdi, spokesman of the Madina Health Department. The Ministry of Health still owes the company over SR40 million, a spokesman of the operating company said. The company, however, has planned to pay its entire staff of 325 hospital workers their past-dues Monday and start processing the Iqama renewal of 130 workers, the spokesman said.
