Yvonne Webb

Amidst es­ca­lat­ing ten­sion in the health sec­tor, the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) has teamed up with the Med­ical Pro­fes­sion­als As­so­ci­a­tion to fight the sus­pen­sion and treat­ment of med­ical staff.PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke said yes­ter­day doc­tors are ex­pect­ed to make a pow­er­ful show­ing of sol­i­dar­i­ty at the PSA's Black­out Mon­day on March 21 in San Fer­nan­do.The Black March sched­uled Mon­day for 8 am from Har­ris Prom­e­nade is the first of a se­ries of ac­tions to be tak­en to de­vel­op a res­cue plan for the health sec­tor.Doc­tors are ex­pect­ed to join the march, Duke said,af­ter a meet­ing with MPATT yes­ter­day. MPATT's Dr She­henaz Mo­hammed said af­ter a meet­ing with their lawyers over this week­end, they will make their po­si­tion clear whether or not they will join with the PSA on Mon­day.

She ad­mit­ted that doc­tors are de­mo­ti­vat­ed, de­mor­alised, abused and de­pressed fol­low­ing the sus­pen­sion of five of their col­leagues from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal fol­low­ing the death of Chrys­tal Bo­doe-Ram­soomair at the ma­ter­ni­ty ward on March 4.Mo­hammed said the doc­tors are con­cerned that the pub­lic is now per­ceiv­ing them as crim­i­nals and it is dif­fi­cult for them to func­tion at this present time.She said the as­so­ci­a­tion is in full sup­port of the sus­pend­ed doc­tors and nurs­es and do not think prop­er pro­ce­dure was fol­lowed. She in­di­cat­ed their in­ten­tion to pur­sue le­gal ac­tion in the mat­ter which she de­scribed as un­law­ful and un­jus­ti­fied.

Duke told re­porters at a sep­a­rate news con­fer­ence held at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, "We are work­ing to­geth­er to de­vel­op a res­cue plan, not on­ly for doc­tors and nurs­es in the south, but through­out the coun­try."We have had enough. This time is go­ing to be bit­ter. Let those who sit on the high chair called pow­er, sit up on Mon­day and take note. Health care will not be the same," he vowed.Duke said the health care pro­fes­sion­als who have been sus­pend­ed should have been pre­sumed in­no­cent and treat­ed as such.He point­ed out that the ac­tion of the Board of the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty and the Min­is­ter of Health have crim­i­nalised them when the gov­ern­ment should take the blame for fail­ing to pro­vide med­i­cine and ba­sic fa­cil­i­ties to take care of the sick. (YW)