Autopsy overload

On Monday, Ramjit sent out a release announcing his resignation from MPATT. In it he said his reappointment as senior medical officer of pathology was “fraught with complications and offered with conditionalities.” He was MPATT’s president for the past year.

In an interview yesterday, Ramjit explained that the SWRHA attempted to insert a clause in his contract which put a quota on his workload. He said the SWRHA expected him to do 250 autopsies a year and 3,000 histologies (processing of tissue). Ramjit said, “That should not be part of any contract. That was never negotiated for.”

He said the quota was also too high and an overworked pathologist could make errors fatal to patients.

Ramjit said the standard of the Royal College of Physicians was 100 autopsies and 1,000 histologies annually. There is only one full time pathologist at SFGH. He said between 400 and 500 autopsies are done annually at San Fernando General Hospital.

Ramjit’s contract was discussed yesterday at a meeting called by MPATT for its membership at the south hospital.

Following the meeting, MPATT issued a statement calling on the SWRHA and CEO Michael Harris to “immediately withdraw” the “unrealistic target quota” policy included in the contract offered on August 18. The doctors threatened to “act accordingly” if the policy and contract were not withdrawn.

MPATT acting president Dr Rajendra Persad said the contract offered by the SWRHA included unnegotiated conditionalities offered only to Ramjit and this was a clear case of victimisation.

He said, “The action by the CEO is a clear and grievous violation of all principles of good industrial relations practice. MPATT would like to point out that negotiations for terms and conditions for the period 2006-2008 are ongoing and the offer by the CEO is a clear declaration that negotiations have ended.”

Persad said no clinical data was provided to support the unrealistic target quota. He said clinical data was provided by the head of the Department of Pathology, SFGH in keeping with international standards and this was rejected by the SWRHA.

Persad said MPATT always supported the concept of performance appraisal and had proposed quality performance measures in 2001 but prior to implementation, he said, these measures had to be negotiated and must be based on accepted international clinical standards.

Contacted for comment, a SWRHA official said the authority had introduced a system against which performance would be gauged for all its employees including doctors. The official said workers were given their job descriptions outlining their functions, and “performance standards” against which they would be evaluated.