Tag: doctors

Doctors movement condemn ‘salary increase’

Posted on By 3arabawy

From the Daily News Egypt:

The Doctors Without Rights movement denounced the pay raise offered by Minister of Health Hatem El Gabaly to doctors, Dr Mona Mina, official spokesperson of the movement told Daily News Egypt.
The movement deemed the raise “an underestimation of doctors’ deteriorating conditions and a horrible alternative to their call for a new doctors’ law,” Mina said.
Mina explained that the decision is a ministerial one that can change should a different minister be appointed.
“It would have been better if the minister had promoted a law to be approved by the People’s Assembly to indicate a specific pay raise that cannot be changed when another minister takes over,” she said.
The movement also criticized the fact that the salary increase is to go into effect “only when there are sufficient financial resources” and after doctors undergo evaluations.
Mina added that some of doctors will be granted the raises without any evaluations, while the majority will have to undergo evaluations determining their raises.
“The minister has also promised a salary increase for the months of July and August and that was never implemented,” Mina added.
According to Mina, the salary increase will not equally apply to all doctors. She explained that resident fresh graduate doctors – whose salaries range from LE 300–400 – will earn three times as much. While specialized doctors who have been working in the field for a longer time and whose salaries total around LE 600, will only receive a 30 percent increase in their salaries.
This is due to the ministry’s misconception that specialized doctors make more money than resident doctors because they own private clinics and work in private hospitals, Mina explained.
“Most of those specialized doctors are old and are not able to work in more than one place, also most female doctors cannot commit to private clinics due to family obligations,” Mina said.
She suggested the ministry allocate the salaries according to the working hours, instead of “basing it on a false assumption.”
However, Dr Hamdy El-Sayed, chairman of the Doctors’ Syndicate, lauded the raise, and considers it “one step forward.”

Doctors’ group lashes out against wage increase provisos

Posted on By 3arabawy

Sarah Carr reports:

Lobby group Doctors Without Rights have criticized the conditions attached to wage increases under a ministerial decree passed last month.
Ministerial decree 318 — passed in response to the wage increase demands of doctors employed by the Ministry of Health — pegs the percentage wage increases doctors will receive to their seniority and specialty.
Percentage increases, termed in the decree as a “doctor’s incentive payment,” range between 30 percent and 400 percent.
Article 3 of the decree provides that “the payment of these incentive payments is linked to the availability of finances.”
Doctors Without Rights says in a statement on its website that this connection makes the payment of the increase “extremely uncertain.”
It further criticizes the classification of the increase as an “incentive payment.”
Following a meeting between representatives of the Doctors’ Syndicate and Minister of Health Hatem El-Gabaly last month, the syndicate published details of the wage increases promised by the Ministry of Health before decree 318 was made public.
The syndicate had said that from November 2008, pay will be linked to performance but that only 30 percent of a doctor’s salary would be linked to performance evaluation.
“The increase is an incentive payment and will therefore, without doubt, be subject to evaluation,” the Doctors Without Rights statement reads.
“The ministerial decree does not, however, put in place any clear criteria for this evaluation.
“Furthermore, it does not confirm the Minister [of Health]’s verbal promises that the payment of 70 percent of these increases will be fixed while payment of only 30 percent of the increase would be contingent on evaluation,” the statement continues.
Doctors Without Rights are also fiercely critical of the vast differences in percentage increases allocated to specialists compared with what is promised to resident doctors, and question whether this is “an attempt by the ministry to break the ranks of doctors and weaken their strength.”
Under the decree resident doctors will receive an increase of 300 percent while specialist doctors will receive a 30 percent increase.
“While the ministry’s official response is that this is the first phase, the verbal promises made about the second and third phases have not resulted in any official decisions with regards to timing [of future payments] or the amounts due.”
The statement goes on to refer to Ministry of Health officials who are reported to have said that specialists enjoy better financial circumstances than those of residents because of the stability of their private work.
Low wages within the public health sector force many doctors to seek work in private clinics in order to supplement their salaries. After 20 years in the profession, a Ministry of Health-employed doctor may receive a monthly salary of only LE 700.
“We are amazed that the ministry calculates what a doctor’s entitlements are on the basis of their estimation of the income he receives from his private work,” Doctors Without Rights said in the statement.
“What if the doctor is not privately employed? Will the Ministry sympathize and accept that he puts aside the years of experience he has obtained and be demoted to a resident doctor?”
Doctors Without Rights are calling for a 300 percent across the board increase for all Ministry of Health doctors. The group is currently collecting doctors’ signatures which will be sent to the Ministry of Health as part of their campaign for improved wages.
The group also underlined the necessity of scrapping article 3 of the decree and renews their demand for a LE 300 occupational diseases allowance voted for at the last general assembly of the Tanta Syndicate.
In July, Doctors Without Right member Dr Mona Mina told Daily News Egypt, “We have not yet received this, and would prefer that we be guaranteed this small sum rather than be promised a bigger pay increase which we never actually receive.”
For its part, the Doctors’ Syndicate in a statement issued yesterday on its website said it was “following up on the implementation of the decree within three months.”
It thanked doctors for “standing behind the syndicate” and said that it would “not waiver from its demand for a minimum wage.”
In February, a general assembly meeting of the Doctors’ Syndicate voted unanimously for a two-hour symbolic strike to bring attention to doctors’ demands for a LE 1,000 minimum wage.
While syndicate leadership initially endorsed the strike action, it took the decision to “postpone” it without consulting doctors after Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif said during a radio interview that strikes by public sector workers are illegal.
Doctors Without Rights organized a weeklong sit-in on the steps of the syndicate in protest at the decision, which was ignored by syndicate leadership who dismissed the group as an “unrepresentative minority.”
Doctors Without Rights have launched a legal case to prove the legality of strikes by public sector-employed doctors.

Doctors’ group skeptical of wage increase promised by government

Posted on By 3arabawy

Sarah Carr reports…

Lobby group Doctors Without Rights have described wage increases promised by the government as “untrue.”
Government representatives met with head of the Doctors’ Syndicate Hamdy El-Sayyed on Tuesday to discuss doctors’ continued demands for wage increases.
According to the syndicate’s website, LE 400 million have been allocated to “overhauling doctors’ working and pay conditions and to the syndicate’s demands for improved pay for doctors in the coming two years.”
News website Masrawy.com quotes Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif, who took part in Tuesday’s meeting, as saying that 295,000 doctors, technicians and other Ministry of Health employees will benefit from the total LE 850 million which will have been allotted to health sector employees by the end of the current financial year.
El-Gabaly is quoted as saying that the average salary of doctors will be increased from LE 700 per month to LE 1,379.
He emphasized that the increase is above the 30 percent increase for public sector workers promised by President Hosni Mubarak at the end of April.
Four days after the presidential promises of salary increases, the government announced steep increases in the price of fuel which economists said would increase inflation and cancel out the benefits of the wage increases.
Dr. Mona Mina, one of the leaders of the Doctors Without Rights lobby group, questioned the credibility of the promised pay increases.
“If doctors are going to receive the LE 1,789 promised this means that roughly LE 800 will be needed for each doctor,” Mina told Daily News Egypt.
“There are some 100,000 doctors employed by the Ministry of Health, which means that LE 80 million per month will be needed to fund the increases. This is much less than the amount the government has pledged.
“This is not the basic pay increase that we have been calling for, this is something imaginary. If the government is serious about these rises let it explain to us in detail which parts of our salaries will increase,” she added.
“At the last general assembly meeting of the Tanta Syndicate, branch members voted for a LE 300 compensation for occupational disease for doctors.
“We have not yet received this, and would prefer that we be guaranteed this small sum rather than be promised a bigger pay increase which we never actually receive,” she explained.
The government has also announced increased allowances for doctors holding diplomas (LE 75 per month) and for fellowship members (LE 150).
“We have repeatedly called for allowances for diploma-holders and for fellowship members but reject the principle that payment of the allowance be linked to an annual report prepared by hospital administration,” Mina told Daily News Egypt.
Doctors Without Rights have continuously called for a minimum basic wage of LE 1,000 for doctors, rejecting previous government offers of increases through allowance payments which they say are unreliable and subject to the arbitrary decisions of hospital management.
The Doctors’ Syndicate has been inconsistent in its attitude towards the lobby group.
Syndicate leadership initially endorsed the symbolic two-hour strike unanimously voted for by the syndicate’s general assembly earlier this year before unilaterally “postponing” it after Prime Minister Nazif said during a radio interview that strikes by public sector workers are illegal.
Doctors Without Rights have launched a legal case to prove the legality of a strike by doctors.
In March, members of the Doctors Without Rights held a week-long protest on the steps of the Doctors’ Syndicate in protest against the decision to postpone the strike and renewing their demands for a basic wage.
Syndicate leaders ignored the protest, dismissing the lobby group as an unrepresentative minority.
At the tumultuous syndicate emergency general assembly held in March the syndicate’s leadership decided that protest action would be organized on April 23, ignoring doctors’ calls for it to coincide with nationwide strike action planned for April 6 and dismissing requests for strike action.
The general assembly held on May 9 voted to “wait for the syndicate board to decide on the timing of protests to be held during June to coincide with the People’s Assembly state budget discussions.”
The board failed to set a date for the protests, prompting Doctors Without Rights to organize another protest on Sunday on the steps of the syndicate in which Secretary-General Essam El-Erian took part.
Daily News Egypt asked El-Erian why he had not taken part in earlier protests organized by Doctors Without Rights, specifically the March week-long protest on the steps of the syndicate.
He replied that he was in fact there and had taken part, and said that “Doctors Without Rights and the syndicate are working for the same goal.”
El-Erian told Daily News Egypt that he thinks the government’s two-stage plan to increase doctors’ wages and improve conditions is an adequate response to doctors’ demands “in principle.”
“We will have to wait and see however whether this is just talk, or whether doctors end up with more money in their pockets,” he said.
For her part, Mina welcomed the presence of syndicate leadership at the protest but called on it to do more.
“We of course welcome Dr El-Erian’s participation in the protest, and thank him for what is a great gesture.”
“It is not, however, enough that the syndicate take part in one protest — it must do more.”