The Sick Doctors At IGMH by Mcritic dated 25th February

The Sick Doctors At IGMH by Mcritic 

I guess the hottest news of the week is the “strike” by the doctors at IGMH. Of course technically it’s not a strike because they just took sick leave and officially they are only on sick leave. In fact some of the doctors who had patients admitted in the wards under their care actually went to review them despite being on sick leave (I guess doctors do care about their patients after all!).

I think by definition an employee strike would involve some kind of public demand and an official acknowledgement that they are going on strike inoder to put pressure for their demands to be met. This has not been done in this case. And of course the whole thing has been turned into a real circus by the government and the doctors themselves, but more on that later.

Taking a look at the reactions on MVBlogs, Alidi who claims to have “unbiased thoughts” fails to realise that government has been anything but unbiased and fair to the doctors and nurses at IGMH. Here is my comment on that post:

“doctors are doing humanitarian work. Even not getting a penny, will get people and God love if assist with patients.” Can you show me one shop owner who will give these doctors a half kilo of rice for free every day as a token of appreciation for their so called Humanitarian work? Or do you think doctors are super humans who do not have to eat or pay rent or send their children to school?

Think about the nation first? Despite the whole world economy going into a recession the government is going around raising everyone’s salaries except doctors who actually got a pay cut. I am sure you would call that fair. Isn’t it our elected leaders who should first have the sense to run this country properly and practice fairness?

Everyone else gets pay rises but it’s just the doctors who have to get happiness by having no desire for happiness.

The only way to stop the Maldives budget from deteriorating is to cut the pay from doctors even while everyone else gets pay rises is it?

The doctors are not complaining about not getting a pay rise. They are complaining about them being treated unfairly. As we can see how much you can understand that concept from your one sided shallow appreciation of the situation.

If you can’t look at the reality or at least be fair and truthful in your analysis of things that are apparently beyond you, at least keep your thoughts to yourself.

The maldiveseconomist says that one doctor at least will be going home with a pay cut of Rf 3000. In fact some of the doctors will be deprived of upto Rf 6000 or more. I wish you would realise that the doctors and nurses are unhappy not because they want to get a pay rise but becuase they have been treated unfairly. And here we were all fooled into thinking that the new government is going to be more competent and fair to the people. It’s funny that on the TVM newscast they said that it’s the normal people who go to IGMH (aka patients) who have to suffer from this unfair action by the doctors. Aren’t doctors people too? What makes them abnormal or supernormal? Is it because they spent a decade of their lives studying while everyone else did not or is it because they have dedicated their professional lives to helping make other people’s lives healthier? Is this the gratitude we have to show to them; that they should get the same salary as someone who dropped out of grade 9?

In that case why should the ministers get a higher salary than the local garbageman? They both seem to have the same depth of knowledge and common sense from the shit that happens in the Parliament.

aliflaamgaaf thinks that the government should start telling the truth to the people. Hmm.. I do remember some bull shit rhetoric from MDP about their planned government having accountability and transparency. I guess in the 100 days of the news management we have taken a ferry back from the New Maldives to the Old Maldives cos we are getting fucked the same way as we were before.

If you’re still reading this I am glad there are still some people left on MVBlogs who have got the patience to read through a post that’s more than 50 words long. Just to finish off I have to touch on a recurring theme of mine; the stupid ass journalists. If the civil service officials are going to hold a news conference to talk about the doctors strike, why can’t one of you get some hard facts and ask some tough questions? Why can’t you go prepared with the facts and make the officials accountabel instead of being pussy pushovers and letting them turn the event into a sarcasmfest? If you take just two values:

1- The pay rise of a typical deputy director
2- The change in pay of a typical specialist doctor

And ask them to explain why the former got a rise of thousands and the latter got a pay cut of thousands, and ask them to explain the difference in treatment, maybe you can get some answers and do your part in this “supposed modern democracy” with a “supposed free press”. But as usual you were all drowsy after your heavy lunches.

And if only the doctors would give this hard information to the journalists so that maybe, hopefully they will raise this issue with a bit more force.

( Reproduced with Mcritics permission: visit Mcritic hereI