Doctors Threaten Strike

Dr Emmanuel Adom Winful, President of the GMA

Medical doctors in state-owned hospitals have called on the government and other stakeholders to act in concert to solve the numerous challenges in the health sector.

They also gave an ultimatum that November 30, 2010 should be the deadline for the payment of their outstanding on-duty-facilitation allowance, otherwise they would withdraw their services.

In a communiqué read at a press conference to climax the 52nd annual general meeting of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) in Koforidua last Saturday, the President of the association, Dr Emmanuel Adom Winful, said it was unfortunate that for almost two years after negotiations for the allowance, its implementation had not been fully carried out, making majority of doctors not being paid the allowance.

Such a situation, he stated, had serious consequences on the health delivery system. The GMA, Dr Adom Winful said, was, therefore, asking the government to, as a matter of urgency, ensure that all its members would benefit from the allowance to avoid a strike.

With regard to the placement of medical doctors on the single spine salary structure, Dr Adom Winful called on the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) to, as soon as possible, engage the GMA to clear all the bottlenecks surrounding its implementation.

He also called on the Ministry of Health and the FWSC to negotiate and implement the conditions of service of medical doctors which had been outstanding for many years, adding that such an initiative would enable the doctors to get what was due them.

The GMA, according to Dr Adom Winful, had recognised numerous challenges in the health sector and, therefore, asked the government and other stakeholders to act in concert to solve them.

These, he said, included high maternal mortality rate of 451 deaths per 100,000 live births, which should be reduced by at least 75 per cent by 2015, as well as a condition of service that would, among other things, address the health care needs of doctors.

All Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, Dr Adom Winful stated, should invest in at least one ambulance for their districts to transport the sick, especially pregnant women, in time of emergency, while the Ghana Blood Transfusion Service should also speedily implement the approved National Blood Policy to address the pressing problem of deaths from haemorrhage after childbirth.

In answer to a question why some members of the GMA often refused postings to deprived areas, Dr Adom Winful explained that the government had not heeded GMA’s advice to it to solve certain problems in deprived communities that would be encountered by doctors posted there.

“We have told the government what to do to keep doctors in the deprived areas but nothing has been done. If they do it as it has been done for doctors working in hospitals in deprived areas run by the Presbyterian Church, many of our members will flock to such areas,” Dr Adom Winful stated.

Earlier in a speech read on his behalf at the conference, the Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, reiterated the government’s commitment to address the challenges in the health sector to particularly reduce maternal and infant mortality in the country.

He, therefore, asked members of the GMA to support the government in that direction by putting in their best. The Vice-President said there were numerous challenges facing the health sector, which could only be addressed through collaboration between the government and the GMA to reduce maternal and infant mortality.

He said such an initiative would also enable the country to attain its millennium development goals in the health sector. Mr Mahama expressed the hope that the GMA would embrace the slogan “Zero Tolerance for Maternal and Infant and Childhood Deaths” and work in that direction to find solutions to the problems associated with such deaths.

He commended the GMA for its numerous contributions to the development of the health sector that had culminated in the separation of healthcare delivery from health policy, leading to the creation of the Ghana Heath Service.