Public health inspectors restive

Western Bureau:

WITH THEIR services increasingly in demand as a result of the COVOD-19 pandemic, public health inspectors assigned to the South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA) are reportedly restive over the Government’s non-payment of outstanding wages.

Of the four regions, inspectors in SERHA, and Southern Regional Health Authorities (SRHA), which comprises St Thomas, Kingston and St Andrew, St Catherine, Clarendon, Manchester and St Elizabeth have not been paid under the new heads of agreement for the 2017 to 2021 contract period that was signed between the Jamaica Association of Public Health Inspectors (JAPHI) and the Ministry of Finance and Public Service in February.

“The public health inspectors are very dissatisfied with the slow pace of how the compensation is being done,” Karen Brown, president of the JAPHI, told The Gleaner. “We were promised that in March we would have received monies, including the one-off allowances, but the ministries have been dragging their feet on the payments.

“The new salary package has been implemented within three of the regional health authorities. The South East Regional Health Authority has not implemented any and they have the bulk of the public health inspectors. They are very dissatisfied, especially with the fact that they were not even considered for the new percentage to be paid,” added Brown.

HARDEST HIT REGION

Interestingly, SERHA, which has 35 per cent of the country’s public health inspectors, is the region hardest hit by COVID-19 infections. St Catherine, which is the epicentre, has 208 cases; Kingston and St Andrew, 79; and St Thomas, one.

St Catherine’s numbers were sparked by nearly 200 cases linked to the Alorica call centre in Portmore, which resulted in a complete shutdown of business process outsourcing firm under the Disaster Risk Management Act. The Government also placed restrictions on the mass movement of people, except for shopping days and exempted personnel, in the parish.

While efforts to get a comment from Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton on the plight of the affected public health inspectors proved futile, the Opposition spokesman on health, Dr Morais Guy, wants SERHA to move quickly to resolve the matter of the outstanding payments.

“I don’t know the details, but whatever the reasons, if an agreement is made it must certainly be honoured … the pay period for April is already gone,” Guy said. “If the other regional health authorities can honour it, then certainly, SERHA should have been in a position to do so.

“When you consider that these are the people who the entire country is relying on to be part of the contact tracing, I think the least that SERHA could do is to settle with them,” added Guy.

Meanwhile, when contacted, Wayne Chen, chairman of SRHA said he was not aware of the matter and that no formal communication about the non-payment of increased wages for public health inspectors has come to his attention.

“That’s news to me. I am not aware of the specific and I have seen nothing in writing or any formal communications to that effect. We have regular meetings and I have not seen or heard any such reports,” he said.

While Brown was not able to say whether or not the concern of the 157 inspectors assigned to the parish of St Catherine was impacting the bid to contain the spread of coronavirus, she made it clear they were not happy. “They [public health inspectors] are unhappy with the treatment. I cannot say that it is impacting the COVID-19 response, because we understand that it is a humanitarian situation at this time, and we hope that the public health inspectors will maintain that position,” said Brown. “But the level of motivation and satisfaction that would have been required is not there, because public health inspectors are not being seen as a priority.”