There are major developments to report tonight about the two week long
standoff between the KHMH Board and its medical staff. The most critical is
that afternoon the mediation process that both parties signed on to –collapsed
when Belize Medical and Dental Union executives walked out of a mediation session.
It was the second meeting between the union, the board and the Labour office
– and it is when the KHMH Board presented its counter-proposals to the
union. The mediator was Labour Commissioner Ivan Williams who told us that the
BMDU was unwilling to negotiate.
Ivan Williams, Labour Commissioner
“Those proposals were presented to the union and the union after a
ten minute caucus came back to the meeting and outrightly said that they do
not wish to continue with the mediation process as they were totally not accepting
the counter-proposals made by the KHMH in total. In other words, there are several
points of discussions and we could have had an agreement on one, two, and so
on but they totally refused to accept any of he proposals made by the KHMH Board.
They have said that they do not wish to continue negotiations so the negotiations
or what we call the mediation process has come to an end so we will no longer
have any mediation.
They refused to accept any of the counter proposals. In other words it
is either their proposals or nothing and we need compromise.”
Keith Swift,
Did that surprise you?
Ivan Williams,
“It surprised me because it puts me the mediator in a position where
I can’t proceed.”
Keith Swift,
Did it disappoint you?
Ivan Williams,
“Yes it is disappointing because mediation in my view is a process
where the parties have the opportunities to work out the differences.”
So that’s it – the mediation is over – there has
been no resolution and tonight the KHMH Board and the doctors are still squarely
at odds with the administration. We’ll have the fiery comments from the
KHMH Board and Ministry of Health about what they say was intransigence on the
part of the union shortly. |