Yahneake Sterling, Staff Reporter
DESPITE AN average of 100 doctors completing their studies each year, there seems to be no cure for the chronic shortage afflicting public hospitals. As much as 45 per cent of these health professionals flee the island in search of employment abroad after training.
Doctors argue that the reason for their colleagues' trek to mainly North America and Europe is more than just the remuneration factor; they crave for better working conditions that can give them the essential post-graduate experience they desire.
Doctors also fear their poor conditions of employment could lead to them making deadly or costly mistakes.
The Kingston Public Hospital (KPH), the largest in the English-speaking Caribbean, located in the volatile downtown Kingston, is not exempt from the shortage of medical practitioners. The institution has a complement of 263 doctors and 37 interns, but for a hospital its size, the ideal number should be far more. According to KPH officials, there should be one consultant, two resident doctors and two interns to 22 patients. However, The Sunday Gleaner observed one consultant and two interns to 36 patients.
THE SHOCK OF KPH
Last year, a young doctor sharing his experience as an intern, said in a letter to The Sunday Gleaner, "My middle-class upbringing in Jamaica, or ... my false sense of reality, didn't prepare me for the shock of KPH."
He related: "At (Victoria) Jubilee Hospital (part of the KPH complex) last year (2004), interns were working from Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. to Monday afternoon at 4:00 p.m., covering four wards, admissions, existing patients and emergencies. These young Jamaicans work to exhaustion in your system for a paltry sum. Are you surprised when they leave this country and enrich others with their talent and dedication?" Interns earn $62,000 per month.
President of the Medical Associa-tion of Jamaica, (MAJ), Dr. Alver-ston Bailey, told The Sunday Gleaner, that part of the reasons young doctors emigrate to other countries, is the lack of upward mobility in the Jamaican medical system.
"There is a cap on post-graduate training posts, often due to economic reasons," he said.
He added that the posts are only offered in the South East Regional Health Authority and the University Hospital. Dr. Bailey noted that this lack of security in the job aggravates the situation as most medical officers operate on one-year contracts.
A MATTER OF URGENCY
The MAJ president argued that the Government should examine the situation as a matter of urgency. He suggests that Government review the salary packages of doctors employed to the public health sector and upgrade the hospital systems to create new posts to encourage young doctors to stay in Jamaica.
Stating that he is aware of the financial constraints on the system, Dr. Bailey described the 3.4 per cent budgetary support for the Ministry of Health in 2003 as unrealistic.
"More emphasis should be placed on health and provisions should be made to provide adequate equipment and supplies," the MAJ president opined.
Dr. Myrton Smith, president of the Jamaica Medical Doctors' Association (JMDA formerly the Junior Doctors' Association), agrees with Dr. Bailey that the lack of adequate post-graduate positions in the public health sector contributes to the emigration of doctors.
He stated that among the many reasons for the shortage of doctors in the system, is the compensation offered to doctors in the primary care facility (clinics), accident and emergency and casualty areas. "The facilities we have to work with, the lack of equipment to do our tasks to the highest level and the fact that we have to make do 'with what little is available" is another reason he attributed to the cause for the shortage.
Echoing the sentiments of the intern who wrote to The Sunday Gleaner, that working 100 hours per week while still attending school is strenuous, Dr. Smith said, "Internationally, hospitals are looking to cut working hours to 56 per week but I don't see that happening in Jamaica for now."
