Ministry reacts to doctors' concern of salary deductions

Accra, Oct. 3, GNA - The Ministry of Health on Wednesday assured the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) that it had no intention of reducing their salaries as being speculated.

This was contained in a release signed by a Deputy of Minister of Health, Mr Abraham Dwuma Odoom in reaction to reports that there was a possible reduction in salaries of medical doctors working in the public service making doctors worse off.

Mr Odoom said the integrity of the pay scale for doctors, Pay Scale 1, has been maintained.

"Doctors can therefore not be said to be worse off," he said. He said the Ministry appreciated the fact that they were members of a health team and would not be allowed to work under aggrieved conditions since they would not be able to provide quality health services.

"We will appeal to the leadership and members of the GMA to be circumspect in the way they resort to the press with labour issues that could be addressed in-house."

He assured GMA that the doors of the Ministry were opened for them to hold discussions on any issue that pertained to their welfare and the general good of the people.

Following the implementation of the new health sector salary structure last year, nurses and other health workers excluding doctors raised concerns about distortions and inequalities in the new salary structure.

Government therefore set up an appellate body to address these distortions in consultation with the aggrieved health workers. The recommendations of the body were accepted by cabinet sub-committee and are being implemented as the Revised Health Salary Structure 2.