Is non-practice allowance a compensation enough?

We were having this social talk with a fellow pharmacist, and we were discussing about issues that any ordinary, young and ambitious pharmacist will be pondering on a day-to-day basis. We agreed on one thing without any reservation; that we were ‘grossly underpriced’ along with many other ‘wrong collared’ workers, and especially for us when it comes to the awarding of non-practice allowance. I have lost count of the different collars workers might be wearing to work: blue, white, pink or no collar. But whatever colour it may be, white for the white lab coat or white for the white shirt, we are not compensated enough for eschewing private practice. Anyway, we got talking, and among many other issues we discussed was how nonsensical the public sector has become. It is fast becoming a dustbin of ineffective souls, who are of no value anywhere else-their safe haven. What will all these people have done without the government foster?

The seemingly healthy competition between the two brand new ministries of health has degenerated into an unhealthy crisis. The new doctor to patients’ ratio is almost hitting an all time low (or high if you see it the other way round) because of the artificial shortages. Reason being more of your medical officers are being turned into ‘administrators’, something so many are so willing to do. Thankfully, administrative indicators, or whatever it may be called are yet to be crafted for this new crop of ‘administrators’. Their original work is just added on to those who are still ‘unfortunate’ to remain in the service delivery. The new one health centre and three dispensary districts (yes there are some like that) will have 3-4 absentee doctors, who do nothing but just sit in their offices, if they have one yet. One such ‘district’ does not have a single clinician seeing patients, because they are all managers. It makes me think these are the people the permanent remuneration board had in mind when they were crafting the non-practice allowance, because, they do not practice, literally.

If only someone can help me on this, much touted doctor-patients ratio thing. Does it still count to the ratio if all you do is sit in an office playing solitaire and waiting for the monthly reports from overworked nurses in hospitals and rural health facilities, if any, to come in and making yourself busy with staff files in the in-betwen period. Or bless that lucky month, when you are out for most of the time for trainings, meetings, seminars, and many other humdrum activities to keep you busy. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about the same thing, month in month out. What is important is that you are going out for free accommodation, free food, and free pocket money (or out of pocket-same thing) from USAID funded operatives. I have never seen a more generous international development government organization, as USAID, to a point that the many bogus organizations play around with the generosity American people with ingenious but sham data. Anyway, I did not intend to discuss this today; it is just that I hate empty pretence, if there is anything like that.

So what will happen if those in public sector decided to decline the non-practicing allowance in unanimity? Will they be allowed to engage in private practice? That will seem to be the logical thing to do, and if pharmacists take that unprecedented step, the situation could actually turn chaotic. Well, that is definitely one thing our policy makers have not thought so much about, and I cant wait to see how they will handle such a situation. Well, it won’t make so much difference for many doctors, especially the seniour ones, because they do practice anyway, to an extent that they even clock more hours than those in private practice. For them, it will be money thrown to the wind, but for pharmacists, it will be an ecstatic moment. Pharmacists in the public sector are the only ones who, are not only not allowed to practice privately, but actually do not practice because of strict enforcement of the policy by the regulators. And if they do, they carry out their illegal duties very subtly with a lot of insider dealings with the agents of the regulators, at a cost.

What we know is that if an individual pharmacist who has not resigned from public service attempts to run a private pharmacy, he will be stopped on his tracks by PPB, unless he is connected. Physicians, however, proudly display all their licences from MP&DB, along with other academic certificates on a conspicuous place in their office. They get away with both non-practice allowance and private practice fees, and they do not have to keep it in the hush-hush just as they do not have to declare to the taxman anything other their regular government salary.

Now what if, what if pharmacists decide, this allowance is not worth its name and said no thanks. Will it just be like, ok, if you don’t need it you can’t have it or will it result in an unprecedented situation with a new set of rules for engagement. Will we start negotiating hours of regular work, to give us room for our other work? Will we be told, no, no, please take it back and we will add you more, we need you.
Whatever is bound to happen thereafter, that is a step worth making. It is so much a better move than going on strike to demand for better pay, and make fool of yourself in the process.

Any other thoughts on this?