Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital on Monday said the strike action of the junior doctors of the hospital was a punishment to patients and not the authorities.
The doctors embarked on the strike action on Friday evening to demand their Additional Duty Hour Allowance (ADHA) for June and July. Professor Frimpong-Boateng, who was speaking to Journalists in reaction to the strike action, described it as illegal adding: "This amounts to indiscipline and in contravention to the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors."
He said the doctors were informed beforehand that the allowances would be delay for some few days adding that there was no reason at all for them to go on the strike since they consented to the arrangement.
Prof Frimpong-Boateng, who is also the Director of the National Cardio-Thoracic Centre, said the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) had promised to tackle the issue and he expressed the hope that the doctors would start work by Tuesday. He said allowances could be paid as and when they were ready.
"The process goes through a long chain of bureaucratic procedures through the Ministry of Finance, The Accountant General's Department and to the Bank of Ghana" he explained and impressed on those in the chain to speed up the process.
Prof Frimpong-Boateng said; "the strike is most unfair to Ghanaians, who have paid for their training adding the action would surely lead to deaths". The doctors' action had resulted in a build up of patients at the Out Patients Department (OPD) that were not being attended to, when GNA visited the Hospital at 1100 hours on Monday.
According to him, senior doctors and some House Officers were attending to in-patients and no admissions had been made since Friday. Professor Frimpong-Boateng said the Hospital has over 2,000 patients on admission but no serious emergencies had been recorded since the strike.
The Accident and Emergency Ward, the Surgical and Medical Block had similarly been deserted. The OPD at the Maternity Block was virtually empty. A senior doctor, who pleaded anonymity, said though the strike had affected work at the hospital, patients who were on admission were being attended to.
"We had to refer most patients to the Polyclinic because of the load so that we could concentrate on those already on admission," he said. He appealed to government and those responsible for the processing of the ADHA, to work hard, to forestall recurrence for the benefit of the patients.
