Health professionals want fair and equitable salaries

The Ashanti regional branch of the Ghana Association of Biomedical Laboratory Scientists has prompted the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) and the Ministry of Health to ensure equitable and fair salaries for health professionals.

The group, through the Health Services Workers Union, has petitioned the Commission over discrepancies and distortions in their placement on the Single Spine Salary Structure.

A communiqué issued at the end of the 1st Regional Congress and Scientific Conference in Kumasi and signed by its chairman, Thomas Gyampomah, called on the FWSC “to rectify those anomalies and ensure that biomedical laboratory scientists are placed fairly and equitably as other analogous clinical health professionals i.e. nurses and pharmacists.

“We hope that we will not be compelled to consider strike as an option in the negotiation and placement of our membership on the single spine salary structure”.

Doctors and other healthcare professionals in the country are currently on strike or contemplating an industrial action, due to dissatisfaction in the implementation of the new pay policy.

The Biomedical Laboratory Scientists say they are restrained in embarking on strike because of concern for the loss of lives. They are also confident the FWSC will not fail “to do a good job” in addressing the salary gaps.

The statement also called on healthcare providers “to support their clinical decisions with laboratory diagnosis so as to improve the quality of healthcare for our patients because laboratory diagnosis has improved tremendously over the years with new tests, techniques and knowledge added to the already existing ones”.

While urging parliament to prioritize the health professionals regulatory bodies bill and pass it into law, the Association called on the Ghana Health Service, teaching hospitals, quasi-government facilities and private hospitals to insist on employing only qualified biomedical laboratory scientists who are registered members of the professional body.

The Association is made up of laboratory scientists working in government-quasi hospitals, blood banks, pathology and research laboratories.

Story by Ghana | Kofi Adu Domfeh/Luv FM