Formalise our new name else… – Physician assistants to Gov’t

Physician Assistants across the country are threatening a nationwide demonstration by July 15 if their new label; “Certified Registered Anesthetists,” is not operationalised.

They are accusing the Ministry of a refusal to operationalise their new name which is ‘Certified Registered Anaethetists’ despite several attempts.

They complained that government is still using the old name which ‘Physician Assistants.’

Speaking to Citi News, President of the Group, Wumbe Jacob warned that if something is not done quickly, they would be compelled to lay down their tools.

“The name physician assistant was the name that was given to us by the Medical and Dental Council. But before this name, we were called anesthetic assistants and these are all names we have rejected out rightly from the very beginning. So when they gave us this name, we actually didn't like the name but they still imposed it on us.”

Wumbe said they have exhausted every means possible to have the issue addressed but government has not yielded positively to their calls “so we have given the Ministry up to 15^th July, to rectify the situation else we are going to lay down our tools.”

A separate statement issued by the health workers said “Physician Assistants are very key medical personnel who perform roles such as surgery, medical operations, and many more at the hospital including even attending to OPD and the most painful aspect is that doctors always take the glory for everything they do.”

They also argued that they want the implementation of a law which would make them stand alone as separate professional body without the supervision of medical doctors.

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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin