Court orders dentist to be paid BD25,000 for unfair dismissal

TDT | Manama                                                 

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com     

The High Labour Court obligated a medical centre to pay BD25,000 to a dentist as compensation for her unfair dismissal as well as unpaid and reduced salaries under the pretext of the coronavirus pandemic.

The court also fined the centre BD200 for denying the legitimacy of the employment contract signed between the two parties by claiming that it was forged. The plaintiff’s lawyer stated that her client was employed by the defendant as an orthodontist in exchange for a monthly wage of BD3,100.

During the pandemic, the defendant refrained from payment for a period of three months, after which the salary was reduced by 50% for another three months despite the working hours remaining unchanged.

When the plaintiff demanded for her salaries, which amounted to BD5,000, the defendant offered to draw a new contract reducing her wage to BD2,000 with 10% of the profits. The lawyer added that since joining the centre, her client did not take annual leave except for the year 2019, and was only given leave for five days in August 2020 and 10 days in December.

She was then asked by the director of the medical centre to work for a salary of BD500 while adjusting her schedule to one day per week. After she agreed to this on January 5, 2022, she was stunned by a decision to terminate her employment contract without justification.

The plaintiff filed a lawsuit to claim her labour rights but the medical centre alleged that the dismissal was due to the plaintiff’s constant unpunctuality and excessive leave-taking, in addition to complaints from a number of patients.

Furthermore, it denied certain terms of the employment contract signed between them. Thereby, the court referred the case to investigate and heard witness accounts from employees of the medical centre, both doctors and administrators.

The employment contract was referred to the counterfeiting expert at the Ministry of the Interior to prepare a report on the validity of the contract. The report concluded that the terms of the contract are legitimate and that the director of the centre had signed them.