Labour Ministry meeting with JMDA leadership amid sickout by junior doctors

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security is now locked in a meeting with the leadership of the Jamaica Medical Doctors Association (JMDA) after junior doctors across the public health sector called in sick this morning.

The Ministry of Health and Wellness has advised that the public health facilities across the country have begun to operate under emergency protocols, as junior doctors have called in sick.

While emergency rooms remain open, the health ministry says outpatient services and elective surgeries have been significantly scaled down or otherwise suspended.

At the same time primary care facilities have also been affected.

Junior doctors have complained that despite an ultimatum given to the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service and the Ministry of Health and Wellness up to late Sunday neither of the two ministries has reached out to the JMDA.

Highlighting what it describes as the major areas of concern, the JMDA says the finance ministry does not want to pay retroactive sums owed to doctors.

It says the ministry wants to impose its rates for overtime and does not want to reinstitute incentive allowance that it unilaterally discontinued.

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