NASSAU| Members of the Bahamas Doctors Union (BDU) are contemplating industrial action over an honorarium list that left out hundreds of frontline workers who risk their lives tending to COVID-19 patients.
During a virtual meeting held on Monday night, doctors discussed whether to join over 300 healthcare workers who have called in sick since Thursday.
While the driver and secretary of Minister of Health Renward Wells received honorarium payments of over $1,100, some doctors received nothing.
One family island physician who was infected with COVID-19 on the job said she had to be airlifted to Doctors Hospital for COVID treatment and received a medical bill of $30,000.
However, the government only gave her an honorarium payment of $1,650.
Doctors plan to lobby for the government to award frontline workers in the public healthcare system hazard pay instead of honorarium payments.
Physicians also called for the resignation of some Public Hospitals Authority officials over their mismanagement of the pandemic and mistreatment of healthcare workers.
