Doctors return to overtime work

It took three days of withholding overtime services of consultants and registrars to achieve their objective of getting an increase in the basic salary offered. But it was not without "compromise" since "adjustments" would have to be made in other areas, said Health Minister John Rahael.

He told Newsday that he had been working over the weekend to come up with a solution to the negotiation impasse since the senior doctors decided to stop overtime work from 4 pm last Friday. This resulted in patients being transferred to private institutions.

Rahael said the PSNC agreed to an increase in the basic salary proposed for consultants (2005) from $13,000 to $15,000. "However the gross will remain as is. Adjustments will be made on other allowances so the global figure will still be $31,500."

This was the total package agreed to by the PSNC last week with a basic salary of $13,000 plus allowances.

Rahael said the PSNC, chaired by Junior Finance Minister Conrad Enill, met yesterday with the Chief Personnel Officer and the Permanent Secretary in the Health Ministry, Reynold Cooper, the head of the Joint Negotiating Team (JNT) of the Regional Health Authorities which has been negotiating with the Medical Professionals Association of TT (MPATT).

Rahael said he subsequently met with the doctors and informed them of the decisions arising out of the meeting.

"The doctors’ emphasis was always on the basic salary. We tried to accommodate them and hold the total," he added.

Rahael said the negotiations involved "compromise" but it had worked out to be a "win-win situation." With the agreement, he said doctors would resume their overtime work from yesterday. Asked about the strategy used by the doctors to get their demands met, Rahael said some mechanism must be found to prevent the interruption of service at public hospitals.

He also said a clear policy had to be established with respect to doctors working in the Public Service and their private practice. Rahael said he hoped the negotiations for the period 2006-2008 would start before the end of the year. He said patients transferred to private institutions would be transferred back to public hospitals now that the doctors had resumed overtime duties.

In a release, MPATT, assistant secretary Dr Rajendra Persad said the association had undertaken to have overtime services at general hospitals resume immediately.

This followed a 3 pm meeting with Rahael and Cooper at MPATT’s office in Chaguanas. Persad said Rahael conveyed the PSNC agreement with the senior doctors’ proposals. MPATT thanked the PSNC for "their sensible and appropriate, though much delayed change in their position, and express our membership’s disappointment that it had to follow this process."