Sixteen district medical officers are still awaiting full retroactive pay while payments begin for some of Saint Lucia’s highest-ranking public officials, prompting Dr Merle Clarke to warn that doctors cannot continue to tolerate what she describes as unfairness and disrespect.
The President of the Saint Lucia Medical and Dental Association is demanding that authorities settle the outstanding balances, saying repeated appeals and an agreement to pay the affected physicians have failed to resolve the matter.
“Those officers worked like everybody else did,” Clarke said. “Our question is why? Why the discrimination? Why the difference?”
According to Clarke, the 16 doctors, who worked on internal contracts, were excluded when other public servants received retroactive payments in February 2025.
She said a Cabinet conclusion in November 2025 subsequently provided for the officers to be paid. However, only a small portion of the money owed has since been disbursed.
Clarke placed those partial payments around August or September 2026, saying they followed multiple emails and threats of industrial action.
“To date, a very small amount of that has been paid,” she said. “It was not the full amount.”
Her criticism comes as she says the Accountant General’s Office begins processing retroactive payments covering April 2011 to March 2026 for senior public service management in grades 19 to 21, alongside parliamentary and other constitutional officers.
Clarke stressed that the association does not oppose those officials receiving retroactive pay or disagree in principle with the recommendations of the Salaries Review Commission. Her objection is that the doctors’ outstanding payments remain unresolved while payments proceed for higher-ranking officials.
She argued that settling the affected physicians’ balances would cost significantly less than the payments due to the senior officials.
“We have repeatedly written the Ministry of Health, the Accountant General’s Office, the Ministry of Finance to have those payments made to our officers who continue to work,” Clarke said. “But these payments have not been completed. In fact, we’ve been ignored.”
The association president also challenged any assumption that doctors’ reluctance to disrupt services means they will indefinitely accept the situation.
Citing industrial action by doctors in Dominica and Jamaica, Clarke said physicians generally try to avoid taking such steps. However, she warned that their restraint should not be taken for granted.
“There tends to be a belief that doctors are never going to take any action. And the reality is we always try not to,” she said. “But what we cannot continue to accept is the disrespect and the unfairness.”
Clarke renewed her call for the relevant authorities to complete the payments to the affected district medical officers.
“We do not think we are asking for too much,” she said. “We think we are simply asking for fairness. We are asking for equity and we are asking for respect for our officers.”
