Frimpong-Boateng defends dismissal directive

The CEO of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, has said the Hospital Administration dismissed the House Officers based on their refusal to acknowledge acceptance of their appointments before the expiry date.

He said the Administration upon further deliberations and considerations on the demands of the House Officers took the decision to give the opportunity to others who were interested to work.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, who explained the circumstance leading to discontinuation of the appointment in an interview with the GNA in Accra on Wednesday, said the Hospital Administration received a letter from the House Officers on the 25 of April demanding their conditions of service, backed by a threat to withdraw their services by April 26, 2007.

He said the House Officers had earlier been told at a meeting that negotiations were still on-going between the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) and the Ministry of Health (MOH) on the concerns raised and negotiations on the salary structure of public sector health workers, yet they refused to acknowledge acceptance of their appointments by the deadline which fell on April 30, 2007.

He said that the hospital administration could not compromise the position of the House Officers with the quality of patient care given at the facility, which would be greatly interrupted if the issue were to drag.

It therefore decided to recruit new house officers to replace those whose agreement had been cancelled. There were new interviews being conducted to recruit House Officers at the administration block at the time the GNA got to the Hospital.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, however, stated that the Hospital Administration would still welcome any re-applications from those House Officers who wish to rescind their decisions and work.

Meanwhile members of the Health workers Group (HWG) have also embarked on an indefinite strike action to back their demands for a well-structured salary structure to correct the numerous disparities in the salary structure of its member.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng called on the public not to panic and said that the MOH was doing all it could to find a lasting solution to the salary disparities of health workers.

He called on the health workers not to lock up their offices saying they should allow those who would want to volunteer their services during the strike action to do so.

Mr Raymond Tetteh, National President of the HWG, in a separate interview with the GNA said the action was as a result of the failure of the Appellate Body, which was set up by the National Labour Commission and the MOH to work on a new salary structure to perform.

He said for the past 15 months the HWG had waited patiently for a favourable outcome from the Appellate Body without any headway and had therefore decided that until the issue was resolved the National Executives could not convince its members to go back to their post this time around.

Mr Tetteh explained that the unresolved salary issue of health workers had resulted in non-payment of allowance during promotions, as well as the freezing of salary increases for the past two years.

He said the Appellate Body was due to present its report to Cabinet this week for approval before sending it to the HWG.

He expressed the hope that there would be a concrete resolution to the issue by the end of the week based on which the National Executives could convince its members to resume work.

Source: GNA