Health Ministry accuses Deputy Speaker of misrepresenting facts on working hours of doctors

Jan 28, 2024 News

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Kaieteur News – The Ministry of Health has accused Deputy Speaker, Dr. Asha Kissoon of misrepresenting the facts on the working hours of doctors within the public health sector.

In a statement issued over the weekend, the ministry said that the Deputy Speaker is “telling only part of the story.  On Friday, during the 2024 budget debate, Kissoon told the National Assembly that doctors have been working for as much as 26 hours continually without overtime.

The Ministry of Health accused Kissoon of “clearly misrepresenting the facts,” adding, “which we hope is an oversight.”

The ministry said that in the event of a specific emergency such as the Mahdia fire, the agency is not aware of doctors working the hours mentioned by Kissoon, without being compensated for it. The ministry said some doctors are assigned to cover periods that may extend the designated 8-hour shift, amounting to 16, 24 or 26-hour shifts. It said they are not physically present in the wards or clinics for the entire time.

“MP Kissoon is obviously referring to on-call assignments. In the case of GPHC (Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation), multiple doctors per department, often as many as 5 to 7, are assigned per department for on-call duties. In some regions, for logistic reasons, the doctors remain in the hospital compound but only respond to see a patient if called out. Because in some settings, the doctor may live on campus, they are at home and called if needed. At GPHC and several other hospitals, doctors are at home during on-calls,” the Health Ministry said.

These on-call duties may be on a doctor’s off day or after a shift and the ministry said it means that the doctors make themselves available in the event an emergency comes up and that they are required to report to the hospital. The compensation is from $4,000 to $5,500 for an on-call assignment, the ministry said. The timings are often from 16:00hrs to 08:00hrs and in most cases, doctors are hardly ever called out, the ministry added.

“Even for a regular eight-hour shift, many doctors are away from their place of work. MP Kissoon spoke giving the impression that doctors are requested routinely to work beyond their shifts by physically being present and not being remunerated. This is not the case and, therefore, MP Kissoon who knows this as a fact is deliberately misrepresenting the facts by not telling the whole story,” the Ministry noted.

The ministry said it is aware that there’s vast room for improvement within the sector, and it noted there is always an opportunity to be able to serve Guyana and its citizens better. This it noted, is being done as the ministry works daily to fix the weaknesses and also reduce challenges that the health sector faces worldwide.

“We are not oblivious to the fact that among the challenges we face are working conditions for health workers in Guyana. As part of working conditions, health workers’ salaries and benefits are a prime consideration.”

“The Ministry of Health under the PPP Government has always been conscious that aggressive efforts must be made to improve working conditions for health workers, including the remuneration for doctors, nurses, and other allied health workers, for example, medical technologists, pharmacists, etc.,” the statement said.

On Friday, Kissoon told the House that the salaries being paid to healthcare workers in Guyana is not competitive with that of the Caribbean and doctors have made several pleas to have this amended, all of which appeared to fall on deaf ears. Noting that the health sector’s budget will benefit citizens, she asked for the recommendations made to be taken into consideration.

“The health sector is one of the most important sectors in this country, but let us not be ignorant of the fact that most of our medical professionals are leaving. Our nurses, our doctors and I say this from firsthand experience as a doctor with colleagues who have left. It is not simply because there is better opportunity outside most of the time Mr. Speaker, it is because when they make a plea for the minimum to be done for them, it is met with deaf ears,” she stressed

During a telephone interview with this publication, Kissoon clarified that doctors within the public health sector are not paid overtime.

“Doctors are not paid any overtime fee at all; they are paid a fixed on-call allowance which is $4500 at GPHC and $3000 at outlying hospitals. So even though the law says that public servants must be paid over time at a fixed rate, doctors are not and that is the issue I was bringing awareness to.”

She added that the on-call fee is also subject to taxation.

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• Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr. Asha Kissoon, Dr. Frank Anthony, Minister of Health, misrepresenting

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