Health ministry urges patience as service disruption looms

The Ministry of Health and Wellness is urging patience from all parties in relation to the dispute over overtime and incentive payments involving the Jamaica Medical Doctors’ Association (JMDA).

The doctors’ group said there would possibly be interruptions to healthcare service if the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) does not hand down a decision in the ongoing wage dispute between the JMDA and the health ministry by Friday, October 2. The JMDA has been pressing 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.

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. The JMDA is asserting that asking junior doctors to be working at the 2021 rate of pay for overtime hours is exploitative.

The ministry said that is also awaiting the decision of the IDT, which is an independent statutory body established to determine and settle industrial disputes referred to it. The ministry, in a release, said it “urges the continued patience of all parties, given the complexity of the matters under consideration by the tribunal”.

Meanwhile, the ministry said that it will, through the regional health authorities, put in place measures to limit any possible impact on the patients who visit health facilities.