The original article can be found on: Trinidad Express By Kimberly Castillo
JUNIOR doctors frustrated over events occurring within the health sector have banded together and formed the Junior Doctors Association of Trinidad and Tobago (JDATT).
With a membership of between 120 and 150, JDATT comprises predominantly doctors hired by the various Regional Health Authorities. Thus far, members of the JDATT executive say the association has been gaining momentum and receiving support from senior doctors.
According to the JDATT constitution, the association will seek the interests of its members in relation to their work in their respective Regional Health Authorities.
JDATT has been in the making for at least four years but the doctors say that successive incidents of doctors being treated unfairly, as well as the victimisation of doctors who question senior decisions, were the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
“I witnessed people being victimised inappropriately and openly. There seemed to be no one who was willing to fight on behalf of those being vistimised…The association will act as a body that will represent doctors. We will bridge the gap between the work force of this country’s health institutions and the administration,” said interim president of JDATT, Dr Muhammad Rahman.The JDATT executive contends that the doctors have been inadequately represented by their union, MPATT.
While Rahman stressed that JDATT is not a union he noted that the association is eager to collaborate for the common purpose of improving health care in Trinidad and Tobago and raising the standards of medicine.
According to a media release, JDATT aims to be the avenue through which junior doctors can address issues that affect their clinical performance, whether it is their working conditions, perceived shortcomings of the health system or to encourage greater health promotion and health awareness.
Rahman said that doctors are held to account to first world standards yet continue to operate under third world conditions. He said hospitals are not only lacking basic investigative equipment but are also plagued with staffing problems involoving doctors, nurses, nursing assistants and attendants.
“The majority of doctors have gotten into a profession where we spent a lot of time studying, we sacrifice a lot of time that could have been spent doing other things and we come out expecting not to be treated like gods but to be treated in a professional manner. What happens at the end of the day is we’re being treated like children by administration and senior colleagues and we’re made to work in conditions that are sub-par, not just for us but for the patients. As a result, we get sub-par outcomes… which are then blamed on junior doctors,” said ordinary executive member of JDATT representing junior doctors of the South West Regional Health Authority, Dr Ryan Ramoutar.
These and other issues affecting junior doctors at the Port of Spain General Hospital (POSGH) were ventilated at a meeting on Monday between doctors at POSGH and Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan.
The Express understands that at the meeting the doctors also expressed their dissatisfaction with their jobs, since the arrival of the new POSGH medical chief of staff, Colin Furlonge.
