The Tribune

By MORGAN ADDERLEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

madderley@tribunemedia.net

AFTER hosting two free clinics on the weekend for patients affected by doctors’ ongoing industrial action, Dr Harold Munnings expressed gratitude yesterday to the team that helped him.

Dr Munnings, a gastroenterologist, offered the special clinics outside his Grosvenor Medical Centre office in the wake of senior physicians at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) withdrawing their services last week.

The clinics were offered last Friday and Saturday to accommodate patients affected by the doctors’ actions. They ran from 10am-1pm on Friday and 9.30am-12.30pm on Saturday. Priority was given to elderly and Family Island patients.

“I want to thank the team that helped me to pull off the two free clinics. We did have two free clinics, Friday and Saturday as advertised - at least, we put out on social media,” Dr Munnings told The Tribune yesterday.

“They were open to anyone who was displaced from a public clinic at PMH due to their troubles, the industrial action going on.”

Dr Munnings said he is not part of the industrial action, having retired from PMH over the summer after 33 years of service.

“I want to thank the team of doctors that helped me to pull off the free clinic…Dr Timothy Barrett, Dr Sheena Antonio-Collie, Dr Judson Eneas,” he said.

“I want to thank my brother, Leslie (Munnings) who provided (a) tent and chairs and ice and bottled water to hand out to anticipated overflow. And then the 10 members of my staff who came out to provide…support for the clinic, security, and so on.”

Dr Munnings added the three doctors who participated are Doctors Hospital consultants who are also not part of the industrial action.

Last Tuesday, 115 senior doctors of the Consultant Physicians Staff Association (CPSA) went on ‘work-to-rule,’ meaning they would only provide limited services, in a move seen as crippling to healthcare.

Senior doctors are fighting for a base salary increase from $48,000 to $75,000. However, the Public Hospitals Authority reportedly would only agree to an increase of up to $60,500.

PHA activated its emergency operations centre in the wake of the action, declaring all out-patient specialty clinics and elective surgeries have been cancelled until further notice.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis commended the actions of Dr Munnings’ clinic. “The last thing any doctor wants to do is jeopardise patients’ care,” Dr Minnis told reporters. “That is not our training. I’ll give an example.

“There is a particular doctor who, because he feels that patients may possibly be delayed in receiving their healthcare, he has offered services at his private office, but once an individual has a booking for any particular clinic and they cannot be seen, they can come with that appointment plan to a private facility and be seen by him, free of charge.

“That’s how doctors are. We are not driven by money. We are driven by our profession, which is to care for people. The last thing a doctor will do is compromise individual’s care.”