Warning that patients will feel the pinch if doctors strike
The South African Medical Association (SAMA), is preparing for a march on the 29th of May to protest against government’s current offer on the Occupational Specific Dispensation (OSD). The OSD aims to address doctors’ pay according to their qualifications, workload and performance. It was due to be implemented on the 1st of July last year (2008).
Bandile Hadebe of the Junior Doctors Association of South Africa (JUDASA), an affiliate of SAMA, said they have endorsed and authorised the march that’s going to happen on the 29th of May, which is ‘a build-up to a bigger process’. They will submit a memorandum speaking specifically to working conditions in the public sector and the Occupational Specific Dispensation (OSD).
‘We, as doctors, have cushioned the inefficiency of the system for too long that it’s now at a point where we’re not able to cushion it anymore’, he said.
He added that the salary adjustment proposed by the government is ‘an insult, as it is not what labour and SAMA had expected’.
‘What the employer is actually proposing as part of the salary adjustment is between 0.28% and 5%. We’re having difficulties in dealing and understanding what it is that they’re trying to fix, if the figures are actually kept at such a very minimal level’, said Hadebe
Dr Percy Mahlathi, Deputy Director-General for Human Resources in the Health Department, says it is ‘indisputable that doctors are inadequately paid’. But he added ‘that should not be the cause to strike as talks have not deadlocked yet’.
‘The revision of salaries was the initiative of the department. We would never have revised those salaries if we felt that they are adequately paid’, he said.
‘We are not saying that they must not go on strike. They can, but when talks have dead-locked’.
Mahlathi advised doctors to consider patients when they go on strike, as it has ‘an impact on their lives (patients)’.
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