The North­west Doc­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (NW­DA) along with pub­lic sec­tor doc­tors from oth­er re­gions are pe­ti­tion­ing for bet­ter salaries and work­ing con­di­tions.

A pe­ti­tion which is cir­cu­lat­ing on­line high­lights “deep con­cerns” re­gard­ing what they say are on­go­ing is­sues sur­round­ing salaries, work­ing con­di­tions, and the pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al wel­fare of doc­tors. They say the last in­crease was in 2015.

There were over 1,300 sig­na­tures up to late last evening.

“As a fra­ter­ni­ty, we work tire­less­ly to pro­vide health­care to cit­i­zens, yet our voic­es have not been heard, and our rights ne­glect­ed,” part of the let­ter read.

The as­so­ci­a­tion, which is a reg­is­tered non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion near­ly a decade old that seeks the in­ter­ests of doc­tors with­in the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NWRHA, is seek­ing re­dress for a lack of salary ne­go­ti­a­tions, “the on­go­ing cri­sis with­in the Med­ical Pro­fes­sion­als As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MPATT)” and in­creased threats to life and safe­ty in the work­place.

In a brief con­ver­sa­tion with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, NW­DA pres­i­dent, Dr Kevin Har­ris, said, “The pe­ti­tion comes as a re­sult of a re­quest from our mem­bers as well doc­tors from oth­er re­gions who have reached out to us to in­ter­cede in light of the lack of ad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion for salary ne­go­ti­a­tions.”

He added, “In light of the lack of an ac­tive union to rep­re­sent doc­tors, many have turned to the NW­DA as a ve­hi­cle for en­quir­ing about any po­ten­tial salary ne­go­ti­a­tions.”

The NW­DA said in its let­ter, which was sent to the me­dia, “The cur­rent 2015 salary is in­ad­e­quate and does not re­flect the rate of in­fla­tion, cost of liv­ing, or in­creased work­load.”

They say this has led to grow­ing frus­tra­tion and dis­con­tent among doc­tors, with many choos­ing to mi­grate. They al­so point­ed to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the work doc­tors would have done to guide the coun­try through that pe­ri­od. They crit­i­cised the gov­ern­ment for on­ly pro­vid­ing “a one-off pay­ment, which does not even be­gin to cov­er the men­tal, emo­tion­al, and phys­i­cal stress we en­dured.”

One doc­tor wrote in the com­ments sec­tion of the pe­ti­tion on­line, “De­spite our ded­i­ca­tion and the sac­ri­fices made, it has be­come ev­i­dent that our cur­rent salaries do not re­flect the ex­tra­or­di­nary cir­cum­stances we have nav­i­gat­ed. As pro­fes­sion­als who have played a cru­cial role in man­ag­ing the glob­al health cri­sis, it feels that an ad­just­ment to our com­pen­sa­tion is not on­ly jus­ti­fied but nec­es­sary.”

The NW­DA al­so raised the is­sue of MPATT, which has no con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly elect­ed lead­er­ship since 2015.

Doc­tors fear they have been with­out a rep­re­sen­ta­tive body ca­pa­ble of ef­fec­tive­ly ad­vo­cat­ing for their rights and in­ter­ests.

“This lack of lead­er­ship has con­tributed to the stag­na­tion of mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sions re­gard­ing our work­ing con­di­tions and com­pen­sa­tion. Nu­mer­ous calls to the MPATT to have dis­cus­sions with NW­DA about en­hanced rep­re­sen­ta­tion and ne­go­ti­a­tions have been com­plete­ly ig­nored. Giv­en their role as the de fac­to ne­go­ti­at­ing body for doc­tors this is large­ly un­ac­cept­able,” the let­ter added.

On a fi­nal point of con­cern, the NW­DA said doc­tors have faced es­ca­lat­ing lev­els of vi­o­lence and threats while per­form­ing their du­ties. They point­ed to two ex­e­cu­tions which have oc­curred on hos­pi­tal premis­es this year while the as­so­ci­a­tion added that con­tin­ued dai­ly phys­i­cal threats from pa­tients and their fam­i­lies make it dif­fi­cult to pro­vide care in a safe en­vi­ron­ment.

“The pro­tec­tive ser­vices have been grant­ed a ‘haz­ard al­lowance’ and men­tal health as­sis­tance, yet no such ac­knowl­edge­ment or com­pen­sa­tion has been ex­tend­ed to us,” the NW­DA said.

An­oth­er com­ment read, “As an emer­gency room doc­tor in PoS­GH (Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal) we con­stant­ly deal with high safe­ty risk pa­tients, there­by putting our safe­ty at risk. We face ver­bal abuse on a dai­ly ba­sis and death threats from ag­gres­sive mem­bers of the pub­lic. It is time this is ac­knowl­edged and we are ap­pro­pri­ate­ly fi­nan­cial­ly com­pen­sat­ed for work­ing in such dan­ger­ous con­di­tions, and for the men­tal and phys­i­cal strain that de­vel­ops as a con­se­quence of it.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Health Min­is­ter for a re­sponse to the NW­DA’s con­cerns but did not re­ceive one up to press time.