When Dreams Turn Dead: The Sad Story Of Ghanaian Medical Doctors...

At Senior High School, the dream of almost every Science student was admission into the medical school. It wasn't the hype or prestige of being called a medical doctor that spurred the passion of young science students...... no!!!

However, the assurance that after 7 years of hustling in the medical school, a 'ready job in waiting' at a hospital coupled with a somehow 'good salary' per Ghanaian standards were good reasons enough to compel students into wasting 7 years of their lives in school once again. I know friends who wept due to failure to enter the medical school.

Now reading the news, 91 junior DOCTORS in the country have not being paid for 11months. Yes, l mean 11 good months!!! Now, how do you expect such doctors to eat, cloth themselves, pay their water and electricity bills, and even buy fuel for their cars or better still send their parents who invested their entire money into their education a penny back-home at the end of the month. For years medical doctors in the country have been treated with disdain. Sometimes they are not paid for almost a year.

When they threaten to go on strike, politicians incite the nation against them, portraying them as greedy and heartless. But let's be honest with ourselves, can we really survive 11 months without monthly salaries? Wouldn't we have gone on strike had we been in the shoes of these doctors? One first move by president Mahama after the death o his boss the late president Mills was his decision to increase his salary from 6000 to 12,000 cedis and also increased that of his ministers. They are given free fueled V8 cars by the state, per diem, travel allowances and numerous incentives. A doctor works from dawn to dusk and you refuse paying him. Why wouldn't they leave Ghana in search of greener pastures in Europe and America ? They are no traitors who often turn their back on their nation. They are ordinary humans like you and l trying to make a living for themselves and their families.

Just imagine these doctors going to church and these modern day money conscious men of God and fund raising specialists calling on congregants to contribute in a typical " Kofi and Ama" fashion . The petty traders would make their donations, teachers, nurses and others would similarly follow suit while the doctors would fake a smile on their faces shamelessly, simply because there's nothing to give from their empty pockets. I feel sorry for these doctors. After choosing to serve their country whereas they could have earned thousands of dollars working elsewhere, that's how our nation is paying them back. Ghana our dear nation is falling apart under this laviathan but highly incompetent Mahama administration. We have gotten to a point where we can't even pay medical doctors. Over 2000, graduate nurses are still unemployed 2 years after graduating.

This is no politics, it's about seeing my country; a nation dear before my heart go down in shame due to leadership ineptitude, reckless and profligate spending, corruption and now the concert party with Akua Donkor. When you have ample money to take football supporters to Brazil and Equatorial Guinea for football festivities, import electricity to watch football,throw away money to win one by-election while your medical doctors saving lives remain unpaid for months, then observers can only conclude: that our President isn't only losing his priorities as a leader but proving to be unfit for office and is even undeserving to be SRC President of a university. To some of us there's no better way to serving our country than appeal to all and sundry to vote this Mahama administration out of power. Let's not vote on tribal, partisan or religious lines. For whether you're from the North, a Ga, Brong, Kwahu, Fante, Krobo, Asante, Sefwi, Nzema, Aowin, Ewe or Adangbe, we all stand to pay higher lorry fares should petroleum prices be increased, we risk dying at the hospital unattended to, should these doctors go on strike and Dumsor is waiting to give us sleepless nights with unbearable heat and annoying mosquitoes.

The 2016 elections isn't about voting for a party but a patriotic call to rescue our nation from its current mess and deterioration. May God bless our homeland Ghana and make us great and strong.

MICHAEL KWADWO NKETIAH ( [email protected] )