Pharmacists’ enhanced packages approved

ON the eve of the 2004/2005 Budget presentation in Parliament, Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Conrad Enill, announced the approval of proposals for enhanced pay packages for pharmacists at Trinidad and Tobago’s public health institutions. Ironically, Enill’s announcement came as pharmacists at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital, San Fernando General Hospital and the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, stayed off the job again yesterday to continue their protest for the said packages. Their actions left scores of outpatients frustrated and despondent at the sight of closed dispensaries.

The pharmacists engaged in sick-out action on Monday and Tuesday, but returned to work on Wednesday. Public Services Association (PSA) president Jennifer Baptiste-Primus said more sick-out action by the pharmacists was dependent on the intervention of Health Minister John Rahael. The minister said the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) had put in considerable effort last month to finalise a proposal for enhanced pay packages for pharmacists to the Finance Ministry. He added that every effort was being made to expedite the process and urged the pharmacists to return to work. Following Tuesday’s adjournment of the Senate, Enill said the proposals for enhanced pay packages for pharmacists were before the Public Sector Negotiating Committee (of which he is chairman) and a decision would be taken “within a day or so.”

Contacted yesterday, the minister said the committee had approved the proposals. Enill said the approved proposals have now gone back to the CPO, who will meet with the PSA to discuss them. However, Enill could not say how long this process would take or whether it had already started. Baptiste-Primus has alleged that a relative of a senior government official was receiving preferential treatment in the Chronic Disease Assistance Programme (CDAP) and interestingly, an expanded CDAP (to cover the medical ailments of persons of all ages) is one of the things which the Health Ministry hopes to receive when the Budget is unveiled in the House of Representatives today. The Ministries of National Security, Health, Education and Science, Technology and Tertiary Education are tipped to be the major beneficiaries in the Budget. On Wednesday, Planning and Development Minister, Camille Robinson-Regis identified health, education and housing as some of the areas on which today’s Budget presentation will focus heavily.