Docs to decide on next steps in response to delayed IDT ruling

More than 100 junior doctors at the Mandeville Regional Hospital in Manchester stayed off the job on Friday, joining hundreds of colleagues across the island.

The junior doctors abstained from work in an effort to pressure the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) to give a ruling in its overtime and incentive dispute with the Government or outline a timeline for its award.

Senior medical officer at the Mandeville Regional Hospital, Dr Everton McIntosh, told The Gleaner that operations were severely impacted as the hospital was manned by just 24 consultants with more than 11 junior doctors staying home.

“We had to drastically curtail services. We closed the outpatient clinic, we suspended elective surgeries, and we discharged all the patients that are well enough to go home. We have the skeleton cadre on the wards and in the emergency department,” he said.

“We can only see urgent emergencies,” he added.

The 24-hour action, which began at 8 a.m. on Friday, follows a warning from the Jamaica Medical Doctors’ Association (JMDA) that it would take action on Friday if the IDT failed to deliver its long-awaited ruling on a $31-billion overtime dispute.

JMDA President Dr Jubilee Brown-Service said disruption was seen across the health sector.

“Our health centres had very limited staffing and so many patients had to reschedule their clinic appointments. In our hospitals, we would have seen a slower triage process … . I will presume that there have been some limitations in the numbers of surgeries that have been done, but I haven’t received any specific reports,” she said.

The Ministry of Health & Wellness said there were no adverse events at the island’s health centres and hospitals. It said health facilities across the island prioritised patients presenting with life-threathening and other serious medical conditions.

MEETING TO DECIDE NEXT STEP

Brown-Service, in the meantime, said the JMDA members will convene early next week to decide on next steps in further response to the delayed ruling.

“I do hope that all parties involved understand that they have a shared responsibility for the health sector. So yes, the doctors who staff it, but also those who are expected to compensate us fairly, and appropriately and those who are expected to make a timely ruling in the spirit of justice,” Brown-Service told The Gleaner yesterday.

The JMDA and the Government have been locked in a dispute over the issue since 2023, with the Government calculating the retroactive overtime payment for the doctors at $23 billion.

The matter was referred to the IDT by Labour Minister Pearnel Charles Jr.

In its statement on Wednesday, the IDT acknowledged that unusual delays in handing down awards could erode the public’s confidence in the work of the quasi-judicial body but noted that justice has to be “careful”.

Meanwhile, Opposition Spokesman on Health and Wellness Dr Alfred Dawes said the delay in the ruling is an insult to doctors.

“We can’t just accept that because there is a vague loophole that gives them a practicable time to deliver a ruling, ... they’re just going to take their own time while the doctors continue to suffer. They have to prioritise and treat this issue with the urgency that it deserves,” he said.

Dawes added: “The doctors are asked to sacrifice their health, their personal time, their sanity in order to care for Jamaicans in environments that are not conducive to delivering that healthcare, and even put them at risk for medical negligence claims.”

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com