• Demand revised payments to PSMs

The Government Radiological Technologists' Association (GRTA) warned that it would be forced to withdraw from extra-duty work unless the Health Ministry revised extra-duty payments for Professions Supplementary to Medicine (PSM) staff, which it said had remained unchanged since 2004. Speaking to The Daily Morning, GRTA President Chanaka Dharmawickrama said yesterday (4) that successive Governments had failed to revise the extra-duty payments paid to PSM staff for more than two decades despite repeated requests made by them. Dharmawickrama said that although committee reports on revising the payments had been prepared and submitted previously, neither the Ministry nor the Government had taken a decision on the matter. He appealed to the Health Minister and the relevant Ministry officials to resolve the issue as soon as possible. "We have even requested discussions with the Minister, but, so far, there has been no favourable response," he lamented.

He said that the PSM sector is already facing a shortage of about 30 per cent of its required cadre and that existing staff are doing their best to maintain services by taking on additional work. He explained that while PSM staff worked their normal shifts from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., extra-duty payments are made for providing on-call services from 4 p.m. until 8 a.m. the following day.

Attempts to contact the Minister, the Deputy Minister, and the Director General of Health Services for comment were unsuccessful.