Our parents still feed us; says unpaid striking doctors

Junior doctors across the country say they cannot continue working after serving the country for nine months without salary, a situation which has caused them pain and anguish.

At the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, a doctor explained that the doctors have endured untold economic hardships because of the state's failure to pay them their salaries.

“We still go to our parents for money. Some are going for loans to survive, we go through all this hell and sacrifice for the patient, it is too much” he told Joy News Tuesday.

Earlier, a pregnant woman sobbed uncontrollably at the hospital's Polyclinic where in Room 5 of the Gynecology unit, patients had been sitting for a very long time.

Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital
She was told by the nurses to go home and return whenever she hears the doctors are back.

A doctor at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital in the Central Region argued that although the Hippocratic oath binds doctors to attend to patients, a section of the same oath requires doctors to be in “a good state of mind” before attending to patients.

Working for nine months without pay, he maintained, will definitely put one in a poor state of mind to work. He described the delays in payments as “amazing” and “mind-boggling”.

He said the mental impact of working without pay since September is turning doctors into patients too.

“This is serious. We do not see ourselves coming back to work” he doctors laid down their resolution.

At the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital, some 160 doctors did not turn up for work Tuesday.

A woman whose brother was involved in an accident Tuesday dawn was disappointed with the delivery of healthcare at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital where the junior doctors had also laid down their tools.

The pace of service delivery had slowed down, Joy News' Hannah Odame reported.

The anxious woman told Joy News, it took her a very long time to see her brother receive treatment after he was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.

She witnessed patients “sitting outside in the rain” as a sense of chaos unfolded at the Orthopedic Center.

Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline|Edwin Appiah|[email protected]