‘Revision of schemes of service for health cadres will depend on ministry’s fiscal space’ |27 September 2023
The Minister for Health Peggy Vidot has said that the ministry has not, up to now, made any revision to any scheme of service for its different health cadres, including that for allied health professionals, but it will make the necessary revision of all the schemes on a priority basis, when the fiscal space is favourable.
Minister Vidot made this comment in the National Assembly yesterday morning following a private notice question by the leader of the opposition, Hon. Sebastien Pillay, who wanted to know the number of schemes of service available for allied health professionals and also when will the government get to review those schemes of service with the aim of improving their salaries, gratuity and work conditions. Also present on the panel to accompany Minister Vidot were the chief executive of the Health Care Agency, Dr Danny Louange, the commissioner of Public Health Authority, Dr Jude Gedeon and the chief secretary of the Public Service Bureau, Shella Mohideen.
Minister Vidot explained that during the Covid-19 pandemic there was a freeze on revision of salaries as the government’s priority was to tackle the economic crisis so that all workers would continue get a salary.
She added that the attention was also on how to continue to assist with the payment of 13th month payments and to increase the salary for workers in the public sector effective this year by a 10% increase.
“Mr Speaker, even though we have not revised the different schemes, we can say that there is an improvement in the salaries of allied health professionals as well as other workers in the Ministry of Health as a result of the increment in the public sector. We must appreciate that the revision for all the different schemes will not be able to take place at the same time. We will have to prioritise the schemes and revise them in function of the fiscal space available,” said Minister Vidot, who noted that if money is not available in the budget for revision of schemes of service the revision will not happen.
However the minister said that work is being done to revise the scheme of service for the emergency and laboratory technicians among the different health cadres to be prioritised for revision of their schemes of service among which some date back to 2016.
She added that none the less, the process for revision of the different schemes will take time. At the moment there are 10 categories of schemes of service, among the 32 schemes of service for health workers, which caters for the allied health professionals only. They constitute a large group of 52 workers who are controlled by the health professional act 2006. They are listed in SI 52 of 2014.
Minister Vidot said that for them to be able to work within the ministry they have to register with the Health Professional Council. She added that only those who are registered with the council are considered as allied health professionals.
Answering a supplementary question by Hon. Pillay on who is in charge for the revision of schemes of service in the ministry, Minister Vidot stated that the revision is done by the ministry in collaboration with the Public Service Bureau.
Patrick Joubert