Water shortage may compel hospital staff to go on strike

Cape Coast, May 7, GNA - The Medical Director of the Central Regional Hospital in Cape Coast, Dr Kofi Sabeng, on Monday warned that workers of the hospital might be compelled to go on strike if the water problem facing the hospital continued.

He said the hospital has been spending between 18 and 20 million cedis a month to buy water for the hospital as well as some of the staff living within its environs.

Dr Sabeng gave the warning when the GNA visited the hospital to ascertain if workers there have also joined in the strike action embarked on by some of their counterparts in some parts of the country. He said the water situation in the hospital was a "burning issue that has the tendency to agitate the staff to go on strike" and that some health personnel have even refused posting to the hospital because of the water situation there.

Dr Sabeng said what the hospital managed to buy was inadequate for its needs and that although his administration had contacted the GWCL on several occasions with the view to finding a lasting solution to the problem, nothing had come out of it.

He appealed to the GWCL to attach importance to the issue and provide an immediate and lasting solution and not to wait until the hospital workers go on strike.

The GNA found that all members of the Health Workers Group (HWG) comprising nurses and para-medical staff were at post and going about their normal duties and had not joined in the strike. Dr Sabeng and Mr Yaw Adjei-Frimpong, administrator of the hospital, said work was going on smoothly and that no group had given the indication that it intended to embark on a strike action, either through writing or verbally.

Workers at the District Hospital at Cape Coast were also at post and Mr Emmanuel Gyamfi, the administrator, said no working group at the hospital has embarked on a strike action.

He said the only problem facing the hospital was lack of means of transport and that the hospital had not been allocated a single vehicle since the only Mazda pick up it used to have got had an accident two years ago.

Mr Gyamfi appealed to the Ministry of Health to provide the hospital with a means of transport to enable it to discharge its duties effectively and efficiently.

Alhaji Yahaya Ibrahim, the Medical Assistant in-charge of the Ewim Urban Health Centre, also in Cape Coast said work was going on normally.

Later when contacted about the water problem facing the regional hospital the Regional Engineer of the GWCL, Mr Emmanuel Appiah, said water was flowing in some parts of the hospital but declined to tell the