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SLMDA President Responds To Report Of Doctors Withholding Service At MHMC Outpatient Clinic

The President of the Saint Lucia Medical and Dental Association (SLMDA), Dr. Merle Clarke, has responded to reports that the organisation’s members had decided to withhold service at the Millennium Heights Medical Complex (MHMC) outpatient clinic.

An MHMC release on Monday said the Officer in Charge of the Complex, Roger Inglis, confirmed being aware of the situation.

The release said Inglis advised that he had received SLMDA correspondence regarding unresolved issues, including due gratuity payments to doctors whose contracts ended on March 31, 2023.

But SLMDA President Dr. Merle Clarke said the organisation was at a ‘complete loss’ regarding why the MHMC sent out the release.

Clarke said the document was ‘inappropriate and unnecessary’.

She acknowledged issues between the SLMDA and the MHMC, including gratuity payments, the majority of which still need to be made.

However, the SLMDA President explained that the association understood its responsibility to care for the public.

“We will never abandon that duty. We never have and we never will,” Clarke asserted in a statement broadcast Wednesday on Newsspin.

And while emphasising the need to protect the public, she spoke of the need for some basics to give the best possible care.

At the same time, Clarke declared, “We as a group cannot be taken for granted.”

She said the SLMDA wanted to make that clear, but not at the public’s expense.

“It would seem that we called off outpatient clinics but we certainly had called patients whom we thought their care or their being seen could not be delayed. So we did have a very robust plan in place to protect the general public,” the SLMDA President told Newsspin.

In addition, she said the MHMC release made it appear that the issue related only to gratuities.

But Clarke said the long-delayed gratuities represented the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Given how much we have to shoulder, it is very unfair that after much correspondence and so much consultation that, we are currently in this position,” the SLMDA President stated.

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5 COMMENTS

  1. at no point doctors should withhold such service from the public..like officers your duty is of utmost importance to us……a doctor some day must need another docctor’s care….now whoever is responsible, pay the doctors who are deserving of it please………all of us need to eat and live with such means…dont upset me please….masiay in all things the public all ah wee really taking plock from higher heads wiiiii…it’s time we make our voices heard in this place…..

  2. Yeah they must give the best possible care while you people play masquerade with the people money which is long over due. they should report sick in my opinion. when you want people to treat you good you must be prepared to meet them at the same level without hesitation. So if you Dr. Clark have this to say you have absolutely no respect for the service they have already dispense and you still wanted them to give more. Now you must be smoking something that is clogging the top of your cognitive structure in real.

  3. First of all, it was stated that it is gratuities which have not been paid and not salaries…I think it is high time that the Government starts including clauses in these contracts that relinquishes these gratuity payments if the contracts are renewed. Over the years, the government has to keep paying out large sums of money and the end of contractual employment which actually serves as a form of compensation in case you don’t get gainful employment for a few months after your contract has ended. But if the government renews your contract, why should they still have to pay you this sum. The same thing has been happening with many officers of the Planning Department, which in reality should be under permanent establishment, but no, they are keeping it that way so that every 2/3 years when their contracts end they get a large sum of money from the government….. And in reality, all these people still provide shifty service to St Lucians but once again, at the expense of taxpayers.

  4. Clearly the policies/contracts/procedures which govern both the government and private sector in St. Lucia needs to be reviewed/revised. I currently work in healthcare and as far as I know the only time you are not directly responsible for a patient is if you are off duty.

    Hippocratic Oath in simple terms ——
    In the oath, the physician pledges to prescribe only beneficial treatments, according to his abilities and judgment; to refrain from causing harm or hurt; and to live an exemplary personal and professional life.

  5. so whats going on with the high court case where these people brought the doctor to court for using ivermectin for covid? that just die out? people want to know who won the case

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