Despite junior doctors at the Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) voting to strike, Health Minister Dr. Duane Sands said that the Public Hospitals Authority has offered compensation that will go as far back as six years.

The minister revealed as much to the media just one day after the vote by more than 200 junior doctors.

“The Public Hospitals Authority has made an offer to the Bahamas Doctors Union to compensate for all of the public holidays worked over the last five years or six years and the offer, I believe, is a rather generous offer,” Dr. Sands said.

With junior doctors claiming it’s an issue unresolved for some time, since 2012, they suggested that the if the issue could not get resolved amicably, the only other step is a strike. 

When suggested by reporters shortly before Cabinet meeting yesterday that the “working class” (junior doctors) seem to be at their wits end, Dr. Sands suggested the that doctors could not be considered working class.

“I think what we are watching is a transition of professionalism and whether it makes us better or worse, only time will tell. It’s difficult to call doctors part of the working class;  this discussion really gets at the heart of what defines a professional.  

“Bear in mind that if you look at junior doctors, the average salary is about $48,000 a year and total compensation package is about $80,000 a year, plus 15 percent gratuity at the end of three years. 

“So, it’s hardly true to consider those individuals as typical working class,” Dr. Sands said. 

As talks of the junior doctors striking loom, and follows a recent two week strike by consultant doctors, coupled  with a recent strike poll taken by nurses that saw hundreds of them agree to take such action, Dr. Sands said it’s the Bahamian public that will suffer. 

This is “particularly so  when you add the fact that Bahamians have paid for the education of  the overwhelming majority of these young physicians. 

“The fact that Bahamians patients are now being asked to possibly endure the inconvenience of a strike, it means that we now need to go back and look fundamentally at what it means to be a professional,” Dr. Sands said. 

In September of this year, junior doctors demonstrated in front of the critical care block of the Princess Margaret Hospital.