Deputy general secretary of the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW), Dennis Clarke, made this clear while speaking to the Press after a one-hour meeting with workers in the hospital's auditorium yesterday.

"We spoke about the need to have put in place a separation package. This is not a private sector institution where one will talk about suitable alternative employment," he said.

"This is a situation where people hold civil posts, they're employed by the Public Service Commission and they're giving up that employer to go to a statutory board where the terms and conditions that you find in the public service regulations would not be part of the statutory board. There must be a separation package."

He said the ball was now in Government's court, specifically the Ministry of the Civil Service.

Clarke said "it was high time" the ministry sat with the NUPW and examined what type of package would be offered.

Adding that there was no deadline for an end to the negotiations, he said the sooner the key players "came around" to what the NUPW wanted, the sooner the matter could be concluded.

Clarke said July 1 was the date "the hospital would like to see things in place and so would the union".

He said negotiations were not affecting patient care.