Unemployed Occupational Therapists Cry For Financial Clearance

Unemployed Occupational Therapists are calling on the Ministry of Finance to speed up the process for their financial clearance to enable the Ministry of Health assigned them to health facilities to begin work.

According to them, Government should recognize the essence of occupational therapists in the country by ensuring that Occupational Therapy is integrated into the health delivery system to offer quality healthcare.

Addressing a seminar organized by Occupational Therapy Association of Ghana on the theme, “Occupational Therapy: an Integral Part of the Health Care Delivery System-The Role of Stakeholders,” the Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Margaret QuansahAsare, said the Service recognizes and appreciates the key role the Occupational Therapy plays in providing continuum of care and integrated health service to clients and patients.

She indicated that the Service is committed to ensuring that all vacant positions for occupational therapy in the Service are filled.

According to her, the Service has developed staffing norms, which show the numbers and various levels of service delivery where all category of staff including OccupationalTherapists and Occupational Therapy Assistants are to be placed.

Dr. Margaret QuansahAsare indicated that based on the staffing norms, a workforce gap analysis has recently been conducted for the various categories of staff in the service. This data provides the exact number of staff that are required in each health facility.

She added that following the gap analysis, a recruitment budget is being prepared for 2019 and the Occupational Therapists andOccupational Therapy Assistants are part of the staff identified as being in short supply and for that matter being captured in the 2019 recruitment plan and budget.

The Deputy D-G of GHS posited that the recruitment plan and budget will be submitted to Ministry of Finance through Ministry of health for approval of financial clearance to enable the Service to go ahead to do the needed recruitment.

“I must, however, explain that the recruitment plan and budget itself does not give automatic approval or the right for the Service to recruit any staff. The Ministry of Finance must give an approval for financial clearance based on the availability of funds in the consolidated fund before recruitment can be done,” she intimated.

According to her, while the service of Occupational Therapists has been identified as real need across the country, their recruitment depends heavily on approval of financial clearance by the Ministry of Finance even though provision has been made to absorb the newly qualified ones into the Service.

“We will, all the same, continue to engage the Ministry of Finance and advocate for the same dispensation to be made for the release of financial clearance for recruitment of the required number of Occupational Health Therapists andOccupational Therapy Assistants planned under our recruitment budget for 2019,” she assured.

The President of the Occupational Therapy Association of Ghana, Doe-Asinyo Rosemary noted that the GHS which assured them of employment keep postponing the date to 2019.

According to her, efforts have been made to engage the Finance Ministry for financial clearance after their names have been submitted to enable them to start work but failed to yield positive results.

“We’ve spent four years in schools learning how to save lives and when you complete, people have to stay at home or engage in voluntary services which fetch nothing. Some of us have to travel outside the country with our own money to get more training and experience and our government who started this programme is failing to employ us. It very challenging emotionally and financially,” Miss Doe-Asinyo Rosemary stated.

She added that they are the first to be trained in the West Africa region with Ethiopia and other countries learning from Ghana’s experience.