Flexi allowance for house officer

It has been a long wait for us house officer in hospital queen elizabeth. After our on call has been stopped since we start flexi hours, thing has change, but the work still the same.

A few of us have to work oncall while no oncall claimed can be made initially. After that thing getting more stable but the workload that they claimed to be much lessen with this new system may not be applied here in this particular place, Sabah.

Previously we have the luxurious to work as a good team, managing patient in the ward during oncall system but then after the shift started, everyone is alone. There is no team anymore. One housemen have to take care until 20++ patient to be reviewed in 2 hours time. We have to come early as but how early is that? 3 am? Impossible. Then we have to struggle and missed a lot of thing in rushing to finish the work.

Lack of house officer here is the causes for the problem. With 10 people taking care of one ward, with the shift system, it breaks us to multiple small group which is less efficient.

Anyway, shift system for me did not cause house officer to be less exposed because with this system in a place with less house officer, none of us can escape from the exposure that we are supposed to have.

And by the way, shift sytem really do give house officer more time to rest. I missed the tiredness of oncall work. Working 36 hours non stop. Melotonin level was super high, I feel very high with it. Its kind of addiction. and with the money that we received for such work, its super addictive.

But I prefer shift currently. It give me more flexible time to do my stuff. Now I can go to the bank, post office, and other office that I could not go last time ( as we always work 7 days in a week).

Oncall or shift. It does not make any difference for me. I've experience both and I would prefer those which gave me more time to rest. Its normal and natural. Its hyprocritical if you say that you want oncall system cause you want more exposure and stuff. No one want to be living in a hard life. Do you prefer living in a world without cars or electricity? Of course not. So its the same with the flexi hours system for house officer.

The problem is now we are promised to be given rm600 for agreement to change to this shift system. Initial meeting with the people who opposed this shift system tell us that this system will save millions of goverment money. As you know that we did 10 + calls a month and claimed more than a thousand ringgit per month for the oncall, now they give fix rm600 no matter how much work you do. Plus they taxed the rm600. So much saving for the country.

Life is hard without oncall. Our salary as a house officer of course is not consider to be small, but we are in the middle. With the intensive labour and harvasted energy from us, 3k+ does not seem to be enough. But everyone never satisfy with everything so we were told to shut up. I wonder why other occupation can ask for more in their salary but not us. Cause when someone say that he or she is a doctor, everyone will imagine 5 digit number which is not. We are just a hundred ringgit more than a teacher salary. Thousand less from those who work in a bank. Thousand less than those who work as a officer in a private company.

We are not rich. We had enough. Now it is almost not enough without the promised flexi hours allowance. It is like our salary has been cut as much as rm1000 per month. It has been 7 months now and for people like me who has financial determination, it is sure difficult.

Yes they promised to gave it in the end. I just wonder why so long. Why we have to wait 7-8 months while other hospital can get it in 5 months time?

Remember the first time we start working? 3 months without salary is a joke for our colleague in semenanjung. They get their salary in one month plus after working. We still have to wait for 3 months.

Everything is late here. Now the flexi allowance. So tired of waiting. If only tired it does not matter but this involve money. Headache everymonth planing the financial restriction.

Hopefully in the future, everything in Sabah can be quicker. We are living in a fast world. We could not tolerate this kind of speed of work in 2012.

Disappointed.
Sent by DiGi from my BlackBerry® Smartphone