- Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
Dr. Myrton Smith, president of the Jamaica Medical Doctors Association (JMDA), answers questions after the signing of the wage agreement between the Government and the JMDA at the Ministry of Finance yesterday.
The Jamaica Medical Doctors Association (JMDA) and the Ministry of Finance yesterday signed a new wage and fringe benefits agreement, which will see, among other things, medical doctors for the first time being able to
practise privately, outside of regular working hours.
"That represents a major victory and went a long way towards arriving at a settlement," said Dr. Myrton Smith, president of the JMDA, following the signing of the agreement for the 2006-2008 contract period, held at the Ministry of Finance's Heroes Circle head offices, Kingston.
Dr. Grace Allen-Young, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, said the JMDA and the ministry would set up a monitoring committee to ensure that doctors who will be working in private practice follow the guidelines.
She noted that there will be a review twice per year over the two-year period and a decision will be taken on the way forward.
"We expect the association to help us with this monitoring of the performance because we do not expect that anyone who is rostered to be on duty to be elsewhere when they are rostered to be on duty," Dr. Allen-Young warned.
Dr. Smith said there would be periodic performance evaluation, which "will be used to draw up doctors who are neglecting their public duties."
Asked what was being done to ensure that exhausted doctors do not leave public hospitals and go to private practice, which could lead to malpractice, Dr. Smith said it would be left up to the integrity of the doctors to know when they had reached their limit.
In addition to being able to practise privately, medical doctors will also receive:
A 22 per cent increase in salary over two years;
An increase in emergency duty allowance for working overtime;
An incentive allowance for doctors who are not rostered to work overtime.
The JMDA had been in negotiations with the Ministry of Finance for about five months. The doctors were asking for a 76 per cent increase over two years but Dr. Smith said they settled within the ambit of the Memorandum of Understanding, which capped the hike in the public sector wage fund at 20 per cent, but allowed increases to individual groups of between 13 and
27 per cent.
