UMCG not responding to complaints

Teaching hospital UMCG is not responding to complaints submitted by 23 UMCG employees concerning the termination of their positions at the RUG.

According to the hospital’s Board of Directors, they cannot address the complaints because they are not in charge of positions at the university. Simultaneously, the university also refuses to deal with the complaints because the complainants are not RUG employees.

The hospital has now marked the letters as requests for new zero-hour appointments at the RUG, and has forwarded them to the university’s Board of Directors, says UMCG spokesperson Marjolein Bogaards.

Right before Christmas, approximately 300 employees were informed they no longer worked for the university, even though many of them perform educational tasks at the university every day.

Temporary

When UMCG was established approximately nine years ago, it was decided to include the employees of the medical faculty in the teaching hospital. But to ensure that the hospital stayed connected to the RUG, the employees got a zero-hour appointment at the university. They were not paid by the RUG, but they were employed there and could make use of university systems and services.

According to the board of the university, the appointment was temporary, and the term had simply expired. However, in 2010, the employees at the Institute for Medical Education received a letter from UMCG sector director Ton Kee which promised them a permanent zero-hour appointment.

Appeal

On the basis of this promise in 2010, the 23 employees filed an appeal at UMCG. But the hospital board is now passing the problem on to the RUG. The Board of Directors will consider the requests for new zero-hour appointments soon, but the odds that the requests will be honoured seem especially small, since the board is in fact looking to get rid of these zero-hour appointments.

The complainants would not respond to the matter; they will await the board of directors’ reaction.

11-03-2016