THE government has expressed its disappointment at the nation-wide strike embarked upon by doctors in public sector hospitals beginning from Saturday, October 8, 2011 on the orders of the National Executive Council of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA).The Deputy Minister of Health, Mr Rojo Mettle-Nunoo, told the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday that after engaging the GMA and its allied bodies on relativities in terms of medical doctors and all the other professional bodies, the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) and the doctors agreed that all concerns would be addressed before the migration process.
According to him, hiccups at the beginning of the process occurred when all the professional bodies wanted to negotiate individually.
However, a review meeting held at Dodowa with all stakeholders reached a consensus before giving authorisation to the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD).
Mr Mettle-Nunoo said the review meeting also agreed that all professional bodies should be involved in the negotiation process, since it was important for them to work as a team as a way of rationalising the market premium for all.
He maintained that the government, the FWSC and all other bodies working on the process had been very transparent and that the delay could only be blamed on the doctors’ “own internal inability to recognise their own relativities”.
He queried why the ordinary Ghanaian should be made a victim of an administrative challenge which would take time to be worked on and appealed to the doctors and all other health workers on strike to rescind their decision in recognition of the Hippocratic Oath they swore.
‘’If doctors and health workers take their allowances, including back pay, will they bring back the lives of the people who may have died as a result of the strike?” Mr Mettle-Nunoo asked.
The GMA resolved to lay down its tools following an emergency meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the GMA in Tamale on the distortions in the grading structures of the Single Spine Pay Structure and the unscientific determination of market premium and inducement by the FWSC.
Checks at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) yesterday revealed that only emergency cases were being attended to.
A senior official of the hospital told the Daily Graphic that the management intended to review the situation by today to determine the next line of action.
Meanwhile, a labour consultant, Mr Austin Gamey, has described the action of the doctors as a show of gross disrespect to laid down rules and for the taxpayer.
According to him, the doctors were “being unfair” to the entire country, since there were unambiguous laws outlining how they could address their grievances.
He explained that due to the essential services doctors provided for the citizenry, embarking on such action was not only a “slap in the face” of the ordinary Ghanaian but also an abuse of the rules that required them to seek redress at the National Labour Commission (NLC) when dissatisfied with wage negotiations.
In a related development, the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) has suspended the admission of patients to the hospital as a result of the industrial action, reports George Ernest Asare.
A statement issued by the Public Relations Officer of the hospital, Mr Kwame Frimpong, said the hospital was unable to admit new patients as a result of the strike by doctors.
SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo,Daily Graphic, Monday Oct 10, 2011
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