Nkhako Sadige, a social worker from Itireleng Residential Care Facility for the Disabled in Ga-Rankuwa in Tshwane, represented his colleagues and shared his experience on Covid-19 during a two-day Virtual celebration of World Social Work Day.
During his testimony on Wednesday 10 March, Sadige said the year 2020 was not a good year for him and his colleagues; this is after he buried four of his family members who died from of Covid-19 related complications.
He added that the pandemic brought along ethical dilemma to government service delivery.
"Creating a balance between rendering services and ensuring that one does not catch the virus has been one of the most difficult challenges, and a risk to ethical adherence including lack of tools of trade made it very difficult to us as Social Workers to work from home."
"As every now and then one was faced with being forced to go to the office to access the internet or to get a government vehicle to go and render services to the community", said Sadige.
He added that "Sharing tools of trade and offices posed a great risk of contracting the virus even though we were rotating to implement regulations as one will never know who touched what. This made us anxious and paranoid and adapting to new ways has been a challenge since there was no proper training. Some of the officials contracted the virus and other colleagues were forced to step in and assist".
However, Sadige says his experience has taught him and other colleagues that there is no guarantee for tomorrow and that working conditions can change anytime.
He also said they are essential workers although government seems to be confused in classifying them as such.
The advice to his colleagues is: health of the colleague is very important and should not be compromised and they should always think about their families, taking care of themselves must not been see as being selfish.
He also emphasised that Social Workers should protect one another by staying at work when not feeling well because they are dealing with the invisible enemy that everyone is still learning about.
Sadige said as Social Workers they need to adapt to new ways of doing things such as using smart technology.
He also requested that the employer should provide training on Microsoft Teams and salaries should be increased.