OPPOSITION Spokesman on Health Dr Kenneth Baugh says he is extremely concerned about Government’s management of the health sector, which has led to considerable tensions and industrial action.

Dr Baugh, at the same time, called on the health minister to directly intervene in the dispute between junior doctors and the Ministry of Health.

“The constraints being applied by the current administration are choking off the services being provided by hospitals resulting in a significant reduction in emergency services. The health services are facing a financial crisis which is affecting the delivery of care to the Jamaican people,” Dr Baugh said in a release yesterday.

“It appears that the Ministry of Health has indirectly communicated instructions to severely cut doctor’s overtime duty by some [between] 40 and 50 per cent. This could easily leave the hospitals without emergency services,” said Baugh.

The doctors on Wednesday decided to go on sick out as the first step of an industrial action which is likely to escalate and could spread to other members of the staff who are currently suffering a similar fate, according to the Opposition spokesman.

He said, too, that Government owed billions of dollars of arrears to creditors in the health sector, and advised that the arrears include the salary deductions of nurses which have not been paid over to the appropriate institutions.