JMDA warns of growing frustration over delayed IDT judgment

Dr Jubilee Brown-Service, the newly appointed president of the Jamaica Medical Doctors Association (JMDA), says the association is giving the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) another two to three weeks to hand down a decision in the long-running dispute with the Ministry of Health over overtime and incentive payments.

Junior doctors, who are represented by the JMDA, are said to be restive over the lengthy wait for the IDT to hand down a judgment.

“Having waited five months, I believe six months is a reasonable cut-off time, and remember now, there is a policy that guides this and it says 21 days,” Brown Service told The Gleaner yesterday.

The JMDA and the Ministry of Health have been locked in a dispute over the issue from 2023 and the matter had been referred to the IDT by the Minister of Labour Pearnel Charles Jr.

The doctors had also demanded the reinstatement of incentive allowance, which was reportedly unilaterally removed by the Government.

When the JMDA made its submission to the IDT earlier this year, trade unionist Lambert Brown, who represented the doctors, argued that they were forced to work way beyond their specific shifts at times, noting that the Government’s 15-hour-per-week overtime policy, if applied to doctors, could lead to chaos in the public health sector.

He told the IDT that doctors were currently being paid 2021 overtime rates.

$23 BILLION IN RETROACTIVE OVERTIME PAYMENT

The JMDA is pushing for the IDT to make an award of $31 billion in back money for overtime, while the Government’s calculation for retroactive overtime payment for the doctors is $23 billion.

Brown-Service said the association had some other industrial relations matters to settle with various health facilities.

Other matters on Brown-Service’s agenda is to strengthen the collaboration between junior doctors and the Association of General Medical Consultants.

Additionally, she said the JMDA is seeking to forge greater ties with the Ministry of Health as it makes crucial recommendations to increase the capacity of the doctors in the system.

“Many doctors hold the role of leaders and managers and some of them are young doctors who are given this responsibility because there is a shortage of doctors in the system and we want to support these doctors as they continue to lead and improve their ability to lead with excellence,” she said.

Brown-Service, who is a psychiatrist, said mental health is very important to her and the JMDA would be looking at programmes to support health workers who are on the frontline.

“These are men and women who are exposed to the same stressors that the general population is exposed to and some may argue that our stress levels are higher given the nature of our job, the emergency situations we have to deal with, the trauma we have to witness on a daily basis,” she pointed out.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com