Quota system recruitment: Be innovative - GMA tells MoH

Ghana Media Association (GMA) has charged the Ministry of Health (MOH) to be innovative in putting in place systems that will employ medical practitioners and not adopt straitjacket policies in the name of a quota system for employing medical professionals.

Medical practitioners under the quota system will be posted to government health centres based on the number of vacancies available.

This, according to the ministry, will help check the practice where young doctors posted to rural areas reject such appointments.

Speaking with the media, General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) Dr. Frank Serebour said the quota system, according to the position of the GMA, will not solve the problem the ministry envisage to solve.

He said it is important for the ministry to look at aspects of the Single Spine Pay Policy which talks about deprived area incentive allowances. This, he said, will rather push doctors to these deprived areas to go and work.

He cited an instance where doctors were willing to go to Bawku whilst bullets were flying and until recently, Wa which had three doctors in the regional hospital now has about 30 doctors there and quizzed what was pushing these doctors?

He explained that before a doctor takes a decision to go to a deprived area, he or she considers his or her family, the amenities available to him or her and whether he or she will be interested in keeping two homes.

“Tell the doctors instead of working seven days a week, go out there work for five days and take the two days off in visiting your family in the city,” he stressed.