AMMAN — Jordan Labor Watch on Saturday
issued a report on what it described as “violations” carried out against
resident doctors in Jordanian hospitals, describing their treatment as working
for “the benefit of others”.
اضافة اعلان
The report said that resident doctors are
considered trainees, thus, leaving most of them unpaid. A few doctors get the
minimum wage — JD260 — as part of the training and appointment program at the
Ministry of Labor.
The paper listed what it called the harshest
violations against resident doctors, including working up to 100 unpaid hours a
week, exclusion from the social security program, pressure, and long shifts (sometimes
reaching 38 consecutive hours). In addition, the resident doctors work weekends,
eid holidays, official leaves, and maternal leaves.
Medical residents in Jordan started a social media campaign in early
June calling for an end to the unpaid residency program.
Jordan News previously
reported that they used the hashtags “my salary, my right,”
“doctors not slaves,” and “you left us” to call for a change in the working
conditions that they say endangered patients and drive qualified doctors out of
the country.
The unpaid residencies “must be stopped immediately,” Ahmad Awad,
director of the
Phenix Center for Economics and Informatics Studies and Jordan
Labor Watch, told
Jordan News at the time. “The private sector always, if there
is no accountability for them, would like to increase their profits,” he said.
The Labor Watch’s recent report attributed the
violations to the various residency programs proposed by public and private
hospitals, where some private medical institutions propose unpaid programs or
paid programs with a monthly minimum wage.
The report highlighted that the residency
programs in Jordan are divided into paid and unpaid programs.
Other hospitals stipulate that doctors
applying for residency program must pay an annual amount between 1,200 and JD3,000
because they are considered trainees.
The paper also pointed out that some graduate
doctors do not find paid vacancies in hospitals, which leads them to apply to
unpaid programs.
The available annual seats for residencies ranges between 1,100
and 1,200, while medical college graduates reach 2,500 annually, according to
the report. Therefore, the paid positions cannot match the high number of
graduates, leaving the unpaid programs their only option for them.
The report also
indicated that 65 percent of resident doctors who work under the unpaid program
work in medical services hospitals, 25 percent work at university affiliated
hospitals, and 10 percent work at the Ministry of Health, while 5 percent work
at private hospitals.
The medical council did not impose legislation
or a special regulation to regulate the work of doctors in the residency
program, which has attributed to their working conditions, the paper argued.
The report also stressed that the pressures
endured by resident doctors, in addition to the legal responsibilities they
must undertake for being on the front line on patients’ lives has led many of
them to immigrate to seek better opportunities.
The report indicated that 34 percent of
graduate doctors from the University of Jordan and the
Jordan University for Science and Technology work in the US, Europe, and the Gulf among others, which
has led to a shortage in specialized doctors.
The report also said that there is a big
difference between resident doctors in Jordan and their counterparts in other
countries, such as the US Germany, UK, and Qatar, which respects and
appreciates their work.
Therefore, the report underlined the
importance of canceling the “unpaid” residency program, and putting an end to
the immigration of medical staff.
Also, the report proposed that the Jordan
Medical Board must issue a special system for resident doctors, providing them their
rights, regulating their wages, working hours, leaves, in addition to defining
the resident doctors’ positions as per their duties and missions.
It also recommended including resident doctors
in the social security system, including the social security program and health
insurance, and to improve labor legislation in a bid to curb violations and
provide a proper work atmosphere.
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