Doctors Say Strike Still Not Over

The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) on Tuesday said no agreement was reached at the compulsory arbitration meeting as being speculated in the media.

Dr Frank Serebour, Deputy General Secretary of GMA, said the hearsay that the strike would soon be over could not be possible if their demands were not met. He said it was unfortunate that Ghanaians were not looking at the issues at stake but were rather politicising it and giving doctors a bad name.

Speaking to the GNA in Accra, he said, “Instead of the Government negotiating with us to strike a balance, emotions are been used to blackmail us”. The GMA Deputy General Secretary said the Association still stood by its words and was ever ready for negotiation with the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC).

He contended that until FWSC called for fresh negotiation, the compulsory arbitration as provided under Section 162 of the Labour Act, which was being used against them, would not hold. The GMA has called for dialogue to find a lasting solution to the strike and not wrangling and signing of bonds.

Earlier in an interview with the GNA, Dr Kwabena Opoku-Adusei, Vice President of GMA, suggested that the right way was for the Government to set up a committee to investigate their problems and find a lasting solution rather than engage in "legalities". A visit to Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and the Ridge Hospital revealed a virtually idle Out Patients Department (OPD) but nurses were attending to in-patients.

The story was not different at the maternity, children’s ward, eye and accident wards but some doctors who spoke on anonymity said emergency cases were being attended to.

The GMA on October 7, this year, laid down their tools due to the "inability" of the FWSC to provide unequivocal evidence of migration of doctors onto the Single Spine Salary Structure as well as the erasing of distortions made in the grading structures of the Single Spine Pay Structure.

In another development, a well-informed source who participated in the initial negotiations by the Ministry of Health (MOH) for health workers now being used by the FWSC, said though the demands of the GMA was to be expected, the source was not surprised since the fundamental issues leading to the strike had not been addressed by the Government.