Resigned doctors back to work

Mon, 03/08/2010 1:53 PM | The Archipelago

BATAM, Riau Islands: Seventeen doctors who resigned from the state-owned Karimun hospital because of unpaid welfare payments in Feburary, have returned to work after the regency administration agreed to meet the doctors' demands.

The chairman of the Riau branch of the Association of Indonesian Doctors' (IDI), Afrizal Dachlan, said the agreement was made during a mediating meeting between the IDI, IDI's ethical code council and Karimun Regent Nurdin Basirun.

"I can assure today that all the previously resigned doctors will be back to work again," Afrizal told The Jakarta Post.

Afrizal, however, declined to confirm whether the regency administration would fulfill all the doctors' demands.

Seventeen of the 22 doctors working at the hospital reportedly resigned, after claiming they had yet to receive welfare payments from the Karimun regency administration.

Chairman of the hospital's medical committee Ridwan Abdullah, who was among those who resigned, said the resignation was actually the result of an accumulation of problems that the hospital's management had failed to properly address. - JP