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16.01.2012 Critics

ACCOUNTANTS GENERAL DEPARTMENT AND KORLE BU TEACHING HOSPITAL ARE YOU SERIOUS?

By Kakadika
ACCOUNTANTS GENERAL DEPARTMENT AND KORLE BU TEACHING HOSPITAL ARE YOU SERIOUS?
16.01.2012 LISTEN

By the end of my article, I want you both to answer two questions for all observing Ghanaians.

1) How do you expect Ghana to win the fight against brain drain in our health sector specifically among our nurses in regards to the current situation I will be discussing below?

2) Can you give us a detailed strategy on how one should survive for 5 months straight without pay?

– What kind of answers should a person going to work without pay give their landlords?
- From where should the money to put food on the table for dependant relatives come?

I am motivated to write this article due to the fact that I saw the suffering of a friend who had not been paid five whole months. This injustice is happening in some of our leading hospitals one being the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. I was having a conversation with a friend quite recently whereby I discovered she had not been paid for FIVE WHOLE MONTHS, yet goes to work every day. This made me really upset to the point where all I could say was “How do you survive”? How do you afford the transport to and from work? How do you eat? Pay your bills?

All she could say was “I wonder myself how I have managed to make it to this day”. I then decided to ask what exactly was going on and she told me the Accountant General Department was responsible for processing their files and putting their names on the pay roll system. When they protested about the slow process of this procedure they were simply told not to worry and that what was owed them would be accumulated and paid when everything was ready.

Now, the issue is not about being paid an accumulation of what is being owed. Instead, how do you expect these nurses to survive these past five months (and counting) the periods where they worked without pay? - Especially if that person has no relative to fall on for support?

To any Ghanaian who is keen about efficiency and productivity, this does not make sense. Are you trying to tell Ghanaians that it takes FIVE WHOLE MONTHS to add new workers entering the work force on our pay roll system? What exactly are the workers in the Accountants General Department doing that it will take you FIVE WHOLE MONTHS TO PROCESS FILES? What kind of technology do you use in entering the data? How many names are you supposed to be entering? A Hundred Million? Where is Ghana headed with this kind of backwardness?

Yet, we quickly insult our nurses accusing them of being selfish the moment they understandablydecide to travel abroad in search of greener pastures. How on earth do you want our nurses to be motivated to go to work when you do not pay them for their service rendered? How do you expect them to pay for their transportation to work? Feed and clothe themselves? Are we really wining as a society in terms of productivity, efficiency and fighting the brain drain our country faces right now? Someone tell me, are we serious?

I have so many questions that need answers as a citizen of Ghana because it is mind boggling when I try to make sense out of this whole bureaucracy. No, are we serious as a country? Someone should dully let us know when we finally win the fight against the brain drain in our health sector (by the way, good luck with that). And to those working in the Accountant General Departments and all those responsible for this mess, when you go to the hospitals and do not find nurses to take care of you do not complain, just enjoy the experience.

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