On Friday 1 February, the government asked its hospitals and clinics to implement new working hours for all health workers. Doctors, nurses and other health workers will now work 3 days a week but will work longer hours each day. You can read the full letter from the government here.
Asked what the changes mean and what the impact would be, a local medical doctor and human rights activist explained today:
Before this, health workers used to work 5 – 6 days per week on average. Hours per week remain the same, but they are being condensed into 1 day. So instead of working say 12 to 7 or 8 to 4, people will be working 7 to 7 for 3 days.
The transport allowance and basically the whole salary has been eroded by inflation. Workers cannot genuinely afford to come to work. The government seems to acknowledge that what they are giving is not enough, but they say they have no capacity to increase salaries, hence they came up with these measures.
Impact: This will definitely cushion health workers from the transport a little bit, but will also lead to understaffing – a ward that was normally manned by say 4 to 5 nurses will now be manned by maybe 2. This means the worker to patient ratio is increased, with a potential to cause overburdening of workers and burnout which most likely leads to impaired clinical judgement and adverse patient outcomes. Those 12 hour shifts are tiring.
If health care workers are happy about working three days a week, then its fine. But, if health care workers are NOT happy about the new changes, then the government has to consider that. Its ONLY the health care workers who should choose the better ways of working. We need health care workers who are NOT exhausted, in order to perfectly perform their duties effectively. So, dictating how they should work is the worst thing to do.