QEH board following due process, says Hewitt

NOTHING HAS CHANGED. The board of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital wants the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP) to know they are observing the customary terms of engagement.Chairman of the QEH board of management, Guy Hewitt, said yesterday he was deeply saddened and dismayed by the communication from BAMP that it had taken industrial action. With regard to the right to terminate employment, Hewitt said that under the terms of the contract of consultants engaged by the QEH, the board “may at any time determine the engagement of the Employee on giving three (3) months notice in writing to that effect or on paying him one (1) month’s salary.” Hewitt said that similarly the consultant had the right to determine his engagement with the board by giving similar notice.Terms of engagement“The board stresses that these terms of engagement for consultants have been in existence prior to the creation of the QEH as a statutory body.“In the past, consultants have used this clause to end their relationship with the hospital, as has the QEH to end its relationship with specific consultants. The board is not aware that BAMP has ever objected to this in the past.”Hewitt emphasised that the matter of the determination of engagement of consultants must not be taken in isolation, but must be seen as part of the board’s efforts to make the QEH a patient-centred institution rather than doctor-centred.The chairman said the board was unable to comment on the contracts issue as one of these matters was before the court and another concerned a specific individual which it felt was not appropriate to be brought into the public domain.He said that a third matter was currently going through due process as part of an industrial relations exercise covered by an agreement with BAMP.“That BAMP would renege on this agreement indicates bad faith on their part and a certain degree of arrogance,” Hewitt said.In a Press release late yesterday, the board stated they were currently working assiduously to improve the plant, equipment and delivery of services and hoped that “BAMP will adopt a posture beyond the concerns of its members and work with the board in addressing the wider healthcare needs of Barbadians”. (MK)