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| Saturday, 14 June 2003 |
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Doctors suspend strike for Poson by Ranil Wijayapala The Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) yesterday decided to suspend their trade union action today and tomorrow in view of Poson Poya and expressed optimism that the government would take action to resolve their problem within these two days. They also appealed to the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to intervene in the matter and to take steps to issue gazette notification rectifying the present salary anomalies of Government medicos. The GMOA Interim Committee Chairman, Dr. Kumar Weerasekara said yesterday that the association decided to suspend their trade union action from midnight yesterday and to summon a special committee meeting on Monday at 8 am to decide on their future course of action. The GMOA urged the government to give them a 'concrete assurance' by issuing a circular rectifying the salary anomalies of medical officers and dental surgeons to stop their trade union action. "We reluctantly resorted to this trade union action after waiting for nearly two months since April 9 and request the Health Ministry to solve this problem soon", doctor Weerasinghe added. The GMOA officials said it was never their intention to inconvenience patients and that they have kept open the emergency units and continue services at the children's hospital. Commenting on the incident at Colombo North Teaching Hospital, Dr. Neelan Rodrigo said the case of still birth was due to negligence of doctor's advise to the pregnant mother to admit herself to hospital on June 9 as she was having diabetes during pregnancy. The GMOA resorted to trade union action from the general hospitals and national hospitals demanding a remedy to the salary anomaly between the graduated medical officers and registered medical officers created following the announcement of the new salary scales for the registered medical officers on October 31, 2002. "We are highly disappointed with this new salary scales of the registered medical officers as their basic salary is overshadowing that of the doctors of Grade II medical officers", GMOA Media Sub Committee spokesman Dr. Uditha Herath said. The graduated medical officers said that there is a vast difference between the graduated doctors and registered medical officers and added that it was necessary to maintain salary difference between the two groups. The Cabinet Sub Committee that has looked into this matter has accepted that there is an anomaly affecting the government medical officers and presented proposals to rectify the anomaly. "The cabinet memorandum in this regard has not been submitted to the cabinet since April 9 this year and our demand is that the government should take immediate action to rectify this situation as this situation prevails since 1988", he added. The GMOA has agreed with the Health Ministry officials to obtain arrears on the salary anomalies only with effect from 1997 on an instalment basis as they do not wish to financially burden the government. The GMOA also demand that risk allowance paid for the doctors working in North East should be paid as usual as the Government is paying this allowance only for a section of doctors. |
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