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By Dr Shakawan Ismaeel:
Hundreds of trainee doctors have been on strike since last week in Erbil, the capital city of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). With the exception of those working in emergency departments, doctors walked out from all the major hospitals in Erbil. They have announced seven demands including:
- Better security for doctors by changing the hospital guards from police to Zeravany forces (Peshmarga forces).
- Stop specialist doctors carrying out surgical operations in private hospitals in the mornings – and ignoring their duties to the public sector – by adopting semi-privatization of the public hospitals (and allowing some private practice there).
Most of the other demands are about increasing benefits such as on-call payments, work-related risk payments and food subsistence payments.
In addition they are asking the KRG to abolish the 65% threshold for postgraduate study entrance for doctors, since most of them have been unable to achieve this figure due to tough exam markings at the medical schools. They also want increased salaries for doctors working outside major cities and housing provision for doctors – or for the KRG to give doctors plots of land to built houses on.
The doctors’ syndicate claims that they have not been informed about the strike, as do the directors of the major hospitals. The ministry of health spokesman has backed the demands but at the same time encouraged doctors to break the strike because the majority of their demands are not related to the ministry.
This strike is organized by a group of doctors who are in training at different grades and mainly representing themselves without the backing of their syndicate – which raises the question of the legitimacy of the doctors’ syndicate. It is also characterized by very specific demands serving a specific group of doctors. The group communicates their activities on a Facebook page.
Not long ago another group of senior doctors raised demands which (apart from a couple of general demands) were mainly related to that senior group of doctors. It is not surprising how the doctors are fragmented into groups and in desperation each group tries to put their own separate wish lists on the table. The doctors’ syndicate, which is supposed to represent all doctors, has not held a conference or elections for more than seven years. But even if there was no question of legitimacy, the syndicate is mainly busy with political in-fighting rather than concentrating on their members’ agenda.
In their latest move the trainee doctors group has sent a letter to President Barzani, asking for his support in implementing their demands.
Although the majority of this group’s demands are legitimate and the government should work to meet them, the hope is that all doctors and healthcare professionals from all grades will get together, under a single independent organization, to put pressure on the government to urgently start serious reforms within the healthcare system in Kurdistan.
The reforms should not be limited to specific groups but should instead have a wider range of vision through a systematic approach. The private and public health sectors should be regulated through one framework in a way that is complementary to each other.
Dr Shakawan Ismaeel is a consultant physician in acute medicine who writes about health issues in Kurdistan and around the world.
