The Palestinian Doctors Syndicate announced, earlier this week, a series of protest measures, after the union accused Palestinian Labor Minister Nasri Abu Jaish whose also Chairman of the Dialogue Committee of “disclaiming the signing of the final draft of the agreement between the two parties”, according to press statements by the union's director, Nafez Sarhan.
The Doctors Syndicate suspended work last Monday in the outpatient clinics of government hospitals and the Ministry of Health building, with no doctors in the buildings of the Ministry of Health as well.
Work was also completely suspended on Tuesday for all ophthalmologists in all health sectors and facilities of the Ministry of Health, except for alternates in Hospitals.
On Wednesday, there was also suspension of work in clinics and programmed operations in hospitals and primary health care directorates, with the departure from workplaces starting twelve o'clock in all Ministry of Health facilities on Thursday.
In a press interview, the director of the Medical Syndicate, Nafez Sarhan, stressed the exception of emergency cases, childbirth, dialysis, blood diseases, tumors, mental health and preventive medicine in the directorates, the Remittance Service and suspected cases of coronavirus.
He continued, “The government policy was clear, namely, to evade obligations and rights, as there was no response to our demands”.
The union demandED the provision of medical and paramedical staff as well as medical equipment, increasing the number of beds for all centers, hospitals and Ministry of Health facilities, and amending the nature of work allowance for general practitioners to 200% retroactively from the date of 6/6/2013, as well as raising the allowance premium for military medical services doctors to the general doctor to become 100 %.
As for specialists they demanded such raise to become 150%, with the addition of a risk premium to all military services doctors and approve these allowances in the 2020 budget and schedule their financial dues”.
The crisis was triggered by the Arab American University’s adoption in the occupied West Bank of the “Doctor’s Optics” program, after its approval by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education, which the Doctors Union described as“ a distorted program that goes beyond the conditions, laws, and regulations of practicing medicine ”.
Hence, the union also demanded the cancellation of the “Doctor Optics” program because it was “a blatant interference in the nature of the ophthalmologist's work”, along with other professional and social demands.
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