The Samoa Medical Association has decided to shelve the ‘work to rule’ move which was to come into effect from Saturday 1 July.

The decision was made after a lengthy meeting with the Public Service Commission at the Ministry of Health headquarters. The meeting started around 8am on Friday.

According to SMA, they are not asking for a pay rise but more time to consider the PSC offer on their salaries.

The SMA had issued a statement that they would only work from 8am to 4pm on weekdays after the PSC announced that doctors would be facing a pay cut.

This led to PSC revising their offer which now means better salaries for doctors.

On Thursday evening, Samoa Medical Association President Taule'ale'ausumai Dr. Titi Lamese said they are only asking the P.S.C. for more time to discuss the packages being offered before it is implemented.

Taule'ale'ausumai said the negotiations are still continuing and claimed that some of them were "kept in the dark '' about the full details of the proposal from the commission.

He added that they are now only beginning to "understand" some parts of the changes to be implemented.

"However, we feel that they are rushing to implement the changes, yet we still have a lot of questions that need to be answered," Taule'ale'ausumai said. "We are not asking for much here and to clear the air, we are not asking them to increase the salaries.

"We are only asking P.S.C. to grant us more time. One or three months so we can discuss the changes and make sure we are all on board and approve of the changes because, at this stage, we still have so many questions and a few have expressed their support for the changes but there needs to be a unanimous decision on the matter."