Year: 2010

Departing doctors leave IGMH unable to provide outpatient services to children

An acute lack of pediatric specialists in Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) has forced the hospital to temporarily close outpatient services for children, who make up 40 percent of the hospital’s patients.

Zubair Mohamed, Managing Director of Male’ Health Services Corporation – formerly the Chief Executive Officer of IGMH – said that there were only four pediatricians left after many left claiming to have family and personal problems, while others departed on vacation.

Zubair said that low wages and poor allowances were leading doctors to resign and return to their own countries.

”Most of the good doctors we have are from India,” Zubair said.

”They get almost the same salary as if they worked in India, so it’s not worth it for them to work here.”

A recent salary increase for doctors in India has made it even harder for the Maldives to attract and retain qualified medical staff.

Zubair said that the remaining four pediatricians were now working 24 hours on-call in the emergency and IPD units.

”Forty percent of the patients who come to the hospital are children,” Zubair said. ”They are a large group of patients.”

He said that patients hospitalised were now being given more priority than the patients who visited for diagnosis or treatment.

A pediatrician and a second doctor – a talented psychiatric specialist – left the hospital last week on vacation and have not returned.

”They usually leave saying that they have family and personal issues,” Zubair said. ”Only a few directly say that they cannot work for the low salary.”

As a consequence there would be no outpatient pediatric services available this week, he said.

”Hopefully we will get new pediatricians for the hospital very soon and restart services,” Zubair said. ”We need at least six doctors.”

Future of IGMH

When IGMH begins running as a corporation the salaries of doctors will rise and allowances will increase, Zubair promised.

”Right now all the doctors classed are civil servants, ” he explained, ”so we have to follow the regulations of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and cannot provide them the allowances and salary as we would prefer.”

He said the new corporation had held a meeting with the CSC and discussed the matter, and estimated that it would take three months to start IGMH as a health services corporation.

Spokesperson for the CSC Fahmy Hassan said that the Male’ Health Corporation had held a meeting with the commission but ”it was not to discuss the doctor salaries.”

Fahmy said the commission in January asked the Finance Ministry how much they would be able to pay for the doctors salary and said that the commission was not legally authorised to pay any salary the commission wanted.

”We are now paying them the highest possible salary the Finance Ministry has agreed to give,” he said. ”We cannot pay a salary Finance Ministry disagrees with.”

Press secretary for the president Mohamed Zuhair said that the government had nothing to do with the CSC’s code of salary.

”The government will try to solve the problem somehow,” he said.

He said that the salaries of the doctors will increase when IGMH starts running under Male’ Health Corporation, “which was the main reason why we established it,” he said.Permanent Secretary for the Finance Ministry Ismail Shafeeq did not respond to Minivan News at time of press.

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DQP holds party elections and pledges to win 2013 presidential elections

Newly elected Dhivehi Qaumy Party (DQP) Dr Hassan Saeed has pledged to secure a victory for his party in the 2013 presidential elections, reports Miadhu.

In the first congress of the party held last weekend at Bandos Resort, Dr Saeed said he will continue his party’s efforts to make the current government accountable. He added DQP will form necessary alliances to win the 2013 elections.

Elections for the party were also held, but there was not much competition for leadership positions in the party. Dr Mohamed Jameel Ahmed, Imad Solih and Abdul Matheen were elected as deputy leaders, and Abdulla Ameen was the only candidate for secretary general.

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Attorney General appeals to High Court over civil servants’ salaries

The Attorney General sent an appeal to the High Court last Thursday on behalf of the Ministry of Finance, regarding last week’s decision in favour of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) concerning civil servant salaries.

Last Tuesday the Civil Court ruled in favour of the CSC in their suit against the Ministry of Finance regarding civil servants’ salaries, which were reduced in October last year. Although the court ruled in favour of the CSC, they did not specify whether the ministry had to restore civil servant salaries.

Speaking to Minivan News last week, member of the CSC Mohamed Fahmy Hassan said he was “confident the Finance ministry will give the salaries as we requested,” after which members of the CSC and the ministry met last Thursday to discuss the issue.

Today Fahmy said they were “very surprised” when they received instruction from the High Court “not to take any action [regarding the salaries] until they have made a decision.”

He said last week, the Finance Ministry “were very positive and we did not think they had any intention to appeal.”

Fahmy said the issue of salary restoration will again be put on hold until the High Court makes its decision. “I don’t know how long this is going to take,” he said. “It depends on whether any party appeals to the Supreme Court.”

He noted the CSC was not planning on appealing the case yet, but it was a possibility which would be looked at depending on how the AG’s appeal process was going.

“This is a very clear case,” Fahmy said, “civil servants cannot be singled out. There are many other staff paid by the government.”

Fahmy noted the CSC would continue with this case “until it is resolved or a decision is made by the highest authority.”

He added the continued reduction of civil servants’ salaries was “against the Constitution.”

Attorney General Husnu Suood said his office was “speaking against points of law involved in the judgement.” Basically, “we are not happy with the interpretation [of the law]” made by the Civil Court last week, he said.

“The interpretation of the law is not correct,” he stated.

Suood said his office along with the Ministry of Finance and the CSC were having “discussions as to how we should proceed with judgement passed by the Civil Court.”

He said although it was “too early to say” whether civil servants would have their salaries restored soon, he was “very hopeful that it will be settled outside of court.”

Suood reiterated the point that they wanted to settle the matter outside of the court system, and this appeal was only meant to speak against the Civil Court’s ruling.

Press Secretary for the President’s Office Mohamed Zuhair said “in this kind of scenario when they can’t agree,” the appeal is meant to give the Ministry of Finance more time to resolve the issue with the CSC out of court.

He noted Parliament still has not yet passed any of the bills which would provide the government enough revenue to surpass the needed Rf7 billion to restore civil servants’ salaries.

“We will not reach it this year,” Zuhair said, “no bills have been discussed in the house.”

He added the CSC “has no right to demand higher pay” when the government’s revenue is still not beyond the stipulated Rf7 billion.

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President inaugurates Maldives Pavillion at Shanghai World Expo

President Mohamed Nasheed and First Lady Laila Ali arrived in Shanghai, China yesterday morning for the inauguration of the Maldives Pavillion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010.

President Nasheed said the Maldives has been participating in international exhibitions of over 100 years and reminders of the participation of the Maldives in the Shanghai Expo show the country’s active involvement in the international community.

He added the Maldives’ participation in the Expo would be highly beneficial for the country.

The Expo was formally opened to the public yesterday, and is expected to draw 70 million people over six months. There are over 200 pavilions from different countries, representing the urban sustainability theme “Better City, Better Life.”

On his way to China, President Nasheed met with Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya. They discussed bilateral relations between the two countries and projects being developed by Thailand in the Maldives.

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DRP criticises government for not consulting Parliament on new SAARC Secretary General nominee

Leader of Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party’s (DRP) Women’s Wing and daughter of former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Dhunya Maumoon, has said the government did not consult with Parliament before nominating former Auditor General Dhiyana Saeed as the new South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Secretary General, reports Miadhu.

The DRP has welcomed the new appointee for SAARC Secretary General but have criticised the government for not consulting the appointment with Parliament.

According to Miadhu, the government did not have to consult with Parliament before announcing their nomination for Dhiyana to serve as secretary general. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Ahmed Shaheed, said her term will begin 1 March 2011.

Dhiyana was in office as attorney general for a short time and was previously a DRP MP during Gayoom’s government.

She is married to local businessman, Abdulla Jabir, who has been linked to a corruption case currently under investigation.

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Comment: United we stand, divided we fall

After reading the article on Minivan News titled “DRP celebrates ‘beginning of the end’ for government” I can only say I hope MDP takes this as a wake up call.

We saw Maldivians uniting to bring down Gayyoom’s regime. Now it looks like Maldivians are uniting to bring down President Nasheed’s regime.

Surely, something must be seriously wrong in how the country is governed. Otherwise why would everyone unite to bring down a government for whose success in the presidential elections they so passionately worked?

Gayyoom could not digest why he failed when he failed. I am not sure whether he has still recovered from that blow. And from what I am hearing from people like Reeko Moosa, it looks like MDP is also in an euphoric state from which a defeat is seen as what is next to impossible, if not as impossible.

The Nasheed-Waheed team is a dream team. Maldivians saw this.

Anyone who has any doubts about this will need to think of what happened in the parliamentary elections when the dream team decided to split and go on their own. The result was Nasheed could not win majority and Waheed could not win a single seat. But together, they formed a team that won the blessings of almost all the other presidential contestants and as a result the majority votes in the presidential elections.

If Nasheed made someone else his VP, will the others back him? Or will he even get enough votes to go for a second round? Only God knows. But because the Nasheed-Waheed team won the presidential elections, and is serving us today as our leaders, it is only fair to say they are a dream team.

From the news of Waheed’s dissatisfaction we have been hearing lately, it is obvious that the dream team no longer works as a team.

According to an article on Haveeru, Reeko Moosa says, the allegation that the president is running the country as per his and Mariya’s advice is true. Form what he says, I understand that it should only be expected. Moosa says the president MUST govern the country according to the guidelines formed by the MDP parliamentary group and MDP members.

This to me is where things are going terribly wrong.

This is not an MDP government. We have a coalition; by which I mean we have a government that SHOULD run not as an MDP government but as a coalition.

I want this government not just to work, but to do it successfully. Otherwise this could be seen as such a mockery of Maldivian politics.

In my mind, President Nasheed rightly deserves the post. After all, he fought for it; he struggled and suffered as a result. But his vision for the people kept him strong. His pledges impressed me and I don’t think they are impossible things to do. And it would be so wrong to say he is not trying to fulfill his pledges. Then why are we hearing so much of criticism of his government?

I have a feeling he is receiving all the bad rap because he is influenced too much by his own party and also by some of the international agencies who supported his cause. This obviously is not helping. Otherwise there should not be even a moment where the government appears to be on the brink of a collapse.

MDP’s euphoric state will perhaps make them blind to the government being at the “beginning of the end.” They will probably not agree with Umar Naseer in this. But, from all we are hearing, the government’s end seems to be not at the horizon, but much closer than that. This to me is a pathetic state of affairs.

The only solution for the government is, to seek vide ranging advice and opinions that will open all lines of thinking. The ‘drawback’ of this is that such consultations will not allow everything to be done the way MDP wants. Even so, I am sure no one in the coalition will act as a hindrance in implementing the MDP manifesto. And this is not at all a drawback considering that this will keep the government standing.

United we stand, divided we fall.

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President departs for China

President Mohamed Nasheed and First Lady Madam Laila Ali concluded their visit to Bhutan to attend the 16th SAARC Summit and departed for China today.

In China, the president is expected to inaugurate the Maldives pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010, a global event expected to draw 70 million people.

President Nasheed will also conduct talks with senior Chinese government officials during his visit.

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President participates in CNN Earth Frontiers debate

President Mohamed Nasheed participated in the CNN Earth Frontiers debate in Seoul, South Korea on Thursday, along with Academy Award-winning director James Cameron, Puma’s CEO Jochen Zeitz, and Changhua Wu of The Climate Group.

Climate skeptics are indicative of societies in decay, the president said, calling for greater urgency in dealing with climate change.

“If we cannot become carbon neutral by mid-century, then we won’t be around here. It’s as simple as that,” he said.

Reruns of the programme will be aired today at 10.30pm local time as well as throughout the day on Sunday.

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Diabetes Society marks 10th anniversary

The Diabetes Society of Maldives of Maldives celebrated its 10th anniversary at a ceremony at Dharubaaruge (convention centre) last night.

Speaking at the event, Vice-President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik stressed the importance of disseminating information of diabetes to students and young adults.

In his speech, Mohamed Waheedeen, chairman of the society, said the association was planning to introduce laboratory services next year.

The Diabetes Society of Maldives (DSM), with membership exceeding 900 people, provides support for diabetics and conducts fund raising activities for children with diabetes.

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