Strikes are a sign of mental disorder - Chief Psychiatrist

Chief Psychiatrist, Dr. Akwesi Osei, has told XYZ News that the current streak of labour disturbances in Ghana, is a manifestation of mental disorder on a national scale.

He said the country is under so much pressure, which is being manifested in diverse ways, including people’s reluctance to negotiate and find resolutions to their differences.

“All these are mental issues…In other people, this distress will manifest as committing suicide, in other people it will manifest as killing other people, homicides; in others it will manifest in various ways; in others, it will manifest as we not being able to sit down to resolve our differences”, he explained.

Public Doctors and Pharmacists have been on strike for the past four weeks without any signs of an end to the impasse between them and the Government.

The Doctors have been at daggers drawn with the Government concerning payment of their market premium arrears as well as their conversion difference allowances.

They are also demanding corrections of anomalies in their pension contributions.

Several negotiations between the leadership of the Doctors and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission have amounted to nothing.

Currently negotiations have completely broken down, and the Doctors remain obdurate with their stance.

About 350 Cuban doctors are expected in the country, to complement health care delivery in the country.

Although the Government says the invitation of the Cubans was not a tactful move to call the bluff of the almost 3,000 striking indigenous Doctors, the Leadership of the Ghana Medical Association has expressed discomfort over the move.

Besides the Doctors and Pharmacists, Nurses have also threatened to declare a strike.

On the education front, the Ashanti regional branch of the Polytechnic Teachers Association has also threatened a strike from Friday May 3, 2013 if its members category 2 and 3 allowance arrears are not paid as well as their expired conditions of service not re-negotiated.

Prior to all these ongoing and impending strikes, the Ghana National Association of Teachers, GNAT; the National Association of Graduate Teachers, NAGRAT; Coalition of Concerned Teachers, CCT; Teachers and Educational Workers Union; TEWU and the University Teachers Association of Ghana; UTAG had all gone on simultaneously.

Dr. Akesi Osei told XYZ News that: “We are currently a nation in distress”, adding that a survey conducted by Yale University in conjunction with the University of Ghana in 2008, revealed that about 41 percent, out of 10,000 Ghanaians interviewed, suffered one form of emotional stress or the other.

“There is a lot of pressure in society, and we must make a lot of effort to remove the stress,” he warned.