AMMAN — According to the Jordan News Agency, Petra, the
Minister of Health, Firas Al-Hawari, announced in April that instructions for giving out employee incentives at the ministry would be amended.
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However, the Jordanian Veterinary Association took issue with association members affiliated with the Ministry of Health not being included in these amendments.
In an interview with the head of the Jordanian Veterinary Association, Mahdi Alaqrabawi, told
Jordan News: “We veterinarians are present in the Ministry of Health, with a number of no less than 12.”
He also added that previous incentives for veterinarians were equal to those obtained by engineers. This is because of the years of study veterinary medicine requires.
He added: “The association has always demanded that it be included under the umbrella of doctors, as our profession under the civil service system is considered a health profession.”
Alaqrabawi stressed: “The role of the veterinarian is, in fact, to protect human health. … We take care and preserve the health of the animal for the sake of human health, which is natural as many common diseases result due to direct contact with the animals.”
Alaqrabawi said that the amendments made by the Ministry of Health were introduced without prior knowledge of veterinarians, and the system of incentives was unequal. “We were surprised to learn that veterinarians were kept under the old clause, where they get 10 points of incentives, while the engineers’ clause was increased, giving them 15 points of incentives.”
“This amendment seems illogical and unfair. I do not really know what the basis for this amendment was. Still, it is supposed to include veterinarians, and we even hoped that incentives would be increased even more for veterinarians because they deserve it.”
When Alaqrabawi was asked about the measures that were taken to discuss the matter, he said: “We have sent an official letter to the Minister of Health, and we hope that the error, which I hope may have been inadvertent, will be corrected. We have also asked to meet the Minister of Health in-person to clarify the issue with him.”
“Most likely, the Minister of Health does not know the conditions of the veterinary profession, or does not have accurate information about the role of the veterinarian in people’s health, community health,” he added.
Alaqrabawi concluded by saying “I think that this is a clear right, and it is not permissible in any way to exclude veterinarians. This is in addition to the fact that their number of veterinarians does not exceed 12 people, unlike engineers whose numbers reach thousands, meaning that the incentives that will be provided to us will not affect at all the budget of the Ministry of Health or any other budget.”
In another interview, veterinarian Walid Al-Ghasawneh, a member of the Jordanian Veterinary Association, told
Jordan News: “We’re really surprised by what happened, and there is great resentment among the union members. Perhaps because we feel that we have been wronged.”
He added: “We asked to meet the Minister of Health through an official letter … and we explained our disapproval of our exclusion from the medical profession, which includes doctors, dentists, and pharmacists.”
He concluded by saying that “What is really strange is that agronomists and engineers were given incentives that outweigh those of veterinarians, and that doesn’t seem fair at all.”
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