July 2005

19/07/2005
A doctor in the house - at BD1.600 an hour!
By AMIRA AL HUSSAINI

Here's a small lesson in mathematics and a big lesson in life. There is no need to put your thinking caps on because I will take through the problem step-by-step.

Apparently, resident doctors working at the main government hospital, the Salmaniya Medical Complex, are being paid BD800 a month for putting up with workloads of up to 120 hours a week.

This means that they work for a phenomenal 480 hours a month on an average - for peanuts.

I am saying peanuts because if you divide BD800 by 480, the result is BD1.600 per hour - or a packet of those salted roasted peanuts. In comparison, the person who washes your car makes BD1 for roughly 20 minutes of work and a part-time houseboy may earn BD1 an hour for dusting the house and watering the garden.

People look at to doctors wherever they go and say: "Wow ! It must be great being a doctor!"

Please don't get me wrong, for those I know in the profession - my husband included - tell me it is great being a doctor.

I am saying this not because it is a noble profession, but because many of those selfless people are doing it because they believe in the cause and are putting their lives on the line to spend more time with patients and ease their pain.

What is not great about being a doctor is the meagre pay cheque at the end of the month, for no-one can ever be satisfied with not getting what he is worth.

Discussing the plight of the over-worked and under-paid doctors is timely today, when you consider the demands being made by the jobless, along with the calls for social aid for those earning less than BD300 a month.

Everyone deserves to live a decent life. Everyone deserves an opportunity to improve his/her standard of living, but to do that, they have to be equipped with the essential skills necessary to ensure a place in the job market.

If qualified doctors are putting up with a demeaning situation and accepting it with a pinch of salt, while working in silence to improve their situation and redress the balance, why are others making so much noise?

Whoever said empty vessels make the most noise was right on the mark when it comes to the current situation in Bahrain.

Instead of dealing with the jobless protests with batons and teargas, it would be ideal to sit those people down and see exactly what they want.

A detailed study of their experience, education, training and work ethics would call their bluff.

For people who want to work are more systematic, organised and patient while working towards a long-term solution.



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18/07/2005
Low Pay a Bitter Pill to Swallow for Our Doctors

By Amira Al Hussaini

Would you do a 90 to 120 hour week for between BD600 to BD800 a month?
I know I wouldn’t, especially if my job description sets a normal working week of 37 hours and the rest is unpaid overtime.
But for hundreds of resident doctors in Bahrain, this is a fact of life.
Imagine that’s all you are worth slogging through school for 12 years, finishing the top of your class; six to seven years of intensive study at university and a year of training at Salmaniya Medical Complex for NO PAY.
Add to this five years of being rotated from one department to another, working 36 hour shifts with no sleep or time for a decent meal and seeing up to 50 patients a day – all for a pay cheque of a maximum BD800 a month.
There is only one word to describe a situation like that - demeaning.
To add insult to injury, those doctors are not even registered as medical doctors at the Civil Service Bureau and are treated as other Health Ministry employees.
There isn’t a cadre for them, there are no hazard allowances, there is no work insurance and because of the enormous workload, many don’t even get a thank you from many of their disgruntled patients.
To rub salt into an open wound, doctors in Bahrain are actually being paid only a third of what their counterparts in other GCC countries get !
I am happy to see that the Bahrain Medical Society (BMS) is finally taking a serious interest in the situation of doctors in the country, instead of paying lip-service to their plight.
Comments made by BMS president Dr Abdulla Al Ajmi is yesterday’s GDN are encouraging and should be followed through to the end.
Although it would not redress the balance, a 30 per cent increase in salaries would be a step in the right direction.
All the doctors I know have entered the profession with one goal, to serve their nation and their people and ease the pain of patients in their hour of need.
According to Dr Al Ajmi, at least 25 consultants and other doctors have already left Bahrain looking for a better future elsewhere.
It would really be a shame to lose more, especially in a country which counts its own people as its only real asset.



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12/07/2005
Reluctant job-seekers shunning a world of opportunities
Vol XXVIII NO. 114 Tuesday 12 July 2005


By Amira Al Hussaini

I have always thought that something is better than nothing ... but perhaps I was mistaken.

The hundreds of Bahraini boys and girls who are shunning jobs in the hotel sector are obviously seeing something I fail to comprehend.

For them, it is much better to sit at home, get bored, create trouble in their otherwise harmonious households and live off their parents, older brothers or old rich uncles, than wake up in the morning and go to work - a thing people the world over do without a second thought.

Those youngsters are giving up the opportunity to embark on careers which could open a whole new world for them, just because they don't want to work.

We are not talking about jobs for people with masters and PhD degrees here. I am referring to the jobs available in hotels, resorts and restaurants.

These are jobs suitable for school dropouts, who have made the wrong choices in life and who could now be rehabilitated and trained at the expense of others, to ensure that they do something useful with their lives which are going to waste anyway.

But they will not have that, for it really is a hassle to wake up at the crack of dawn and go to work for BD200, especially when you have had an easy ride through school, refused to do your homework, had total disrespect for your teachers and had zero aspirations to go to university and do something useful for yourself and society.

Statistics released by the Specific Council for Training in Hotel and Catering in yesterday's GDN show that out of the nearly BD300,000 allocated for training Bahrainis in the hotel industry last year, only BD163,000 was utilised.

To add insult to injury, in a country where the unemployment figure looms around 20,000, jobless people are actually snubbing opportunities offered to them on a silver platter.

No matter what excuse they give for their reluctance to work in hotels (low salaries, problems with transportation, working shifts, mixing with expatriates, etc), the real reason is that they don't want to work.

Jobs offered in hotels are varied, ranging from reception and office jobs to those in housekeeping and the kitchen and there really is no shame in working for a living.

I fully realise that there are miraculous employment initiatives and labour reforms in the offing, but the truth is that if those people are not ready to get out of their beds and start somewhere, all these efforts are going to waste.

Hopefully, it isn't too late and youngsters will realise that they do have a choice and that their lives and futures are really what they make of them.




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