THE proposed strike action by members of the Solomon Islands Medical Association (SIMA) is still in force.
The strike notice was served last week on 23rd June 2017 by the Association to the Ministry of Public Service’s Permanent Secretary (PS).
In statement SIMA president Dr Claude Posala said, this notice is still in force.
“It is now 14 days since Ministry of Public Service has been served with this notice and to date there has been no serious attempt or effort by the concerned ministry to address the matter with SIMA.”
He explained, the strike notice was issued as a direct result of the gross delay in the renewal of the current doctors’ scheme of service which is long overdue for a review and a revised version.
The current scheme of service is from 2005 and it is now more than 10 ten years old.
SIMA now calls on the Ministry and the Solomon Islands Government, to take this matter seriously and swiftly create a clear way forward in this matter.
The statement added SIMA has been in dialogue with the Ministry of Public Service since December 2016 on the review of the doctors scheme of service.
“However there has been very little progress and now the discussion process has completely stalled.”
Due to this stalled process with failure in all dialogue attempts made by SIMA to the Ministry of Public Service through its Permanent Secretary, SIMA has no other option but to revert, as a last resort, to an industrial action, the statement added.
SIMA statement further stated that 28 days industrial action notice will end on the 21st of July 2017.
The statement said, at the end of the 28 days’ notice, a series of industrial actions will be taken by SIMA which will be graded in stages.
“The stages and sets of the industrial action activities that SIMA will implement, if all else fail, will be clearly publicized in due course to prevent confusion by the public and to also enable medical emergencies and life threatening situations to be respected.
SIMA is a professional body as well as a trade union; hence any industrial action will be done in a professional manner with focus on the immediate resolution of its entreaty with the Ministry of Public Service as the employer of its members.
Attempts to get the Ministry of Public Service for comments proved unsuccessful.
