The Tribune

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

DOCTORS’ industrial action affected patients in Grand Bahama where about 15 to 20 patients attending clinics at the Rand Memorial Hospital yesterday morning were told that their appointments were cancelled.

Philippa Rolle Curry, one of the patients waiting to see a doctor, arrived at 7am for her 8am clinic appointment only to be told it had been cancelled. “They told us that the clinic was cancelled because the doctors are on strike,” Mrs Rolle-Curry told reporters.

She said that her clinic appointment has been rescheduled for early December. Mrs Rolle-Curry, who now works in Bimini and got time off to go to Grand Bahama to attend the clinic, was disappointed she could not see a doctor.

“I am from Grand Bahama, but I work in Bimini at the Hilton Resorts World. I went to clinic to see Dr Lockhart. My appointment was for 8am and I was there around 7am, and we were told at about 9am that the clinic has been cancelled for today and would be rescheduled December 5,” she said.

According to Mrs Rolle-Curry, she also has a therapy appointment with the doctor this week. She complained it is costly for her having to travel back and forth between Bimini and Grand Bahama to keep her doctor’s appointment.

She is calling on the government to resolve whatever issues exist with doctors for the patients’ sake.

“I don’t know what the internal issues are, but the government needs to really do whatever they have to do speedily because my job is on the line. I (am) here now because I have a doctor’s certificate not to return to work, but I am scheduled to return for work on Friday.

“If I stay here who knows what is going to happen. I don’t have money to go back and forth from Bimini again for December 5.”

On Tuesday, Consultant Physicians Staff Association, backed by the Bahamas Doctors Union, said they would withdraw services this week warning that only “life and death” cases will be accommodated until there is a resolution over outstanding physician reimbursements and improvements to base salaries.

Anyone reporting to any of the country’s public medical facilities will experience “difficulties” receiving care, the doctors insisted, adding that no elective procedures were to be carried out. Later, the Public Hospitals Authority advised that all electives were cancelled. These included procedures at out-patient specialty clinics, inclusive of medical, surgical, dental, ENT (ear, nose and throat), eye clinic and family medicine clinics, which were reduced until further notice.

In a move seen as crippling to healthcare, the two unions maintained the planned industrial action could range from “work to rule”, which means following working rules and hours exactly as they are required to reduce efficiency – utilising sick days, go slow, taking leave as is desired or even demonstrating in the coming days.

CSPA President Dr Locksley Munroe said doctors are frustrated by the way officials are dealing with their longstanding concerns.

Chief among complaints are doctors’ salaries.

Asked on Tuesday what it would take for the PHA to put an end to doctors’ grievances, Dr Munroe said: “Essentially they would need to correct our salaries and we are not even asking for what is the true value and worth of the consultants, we’re simply asking that our services be honoured. It is still essentially an honorarium that we are asking for so if they can honour that request and as people speak about demand we’re not making demands we are simply asking that you respect what it is that we do. Once they do that then everything will be sorted out.”