Commentary - Don’t Dignify Doctors

Than Others

One cannot deny the fact that the services of health practitioners in Ghana are not important. No! But the fact of the matter is that, they must be told what they need to hear so they will put a stop to their antisocial behaviour. This is what The Informer has decided to do without any regret or apology whatsoever to anybody likely to be affected in anyway.

Much as we appreciate the good efforts of our ‘doctoring’ brothers and sister and commend them for their good work, it is equally important to call them to order, by letting them know that they are not more important than the rest of the Ghanaian populace, as well as other professional bodies whose tax money are used in their becoming doctors.

We have been following the debate with keen interest in the on-going impasse between the Ghana Medical Association and the Fair Wages Commission and our position is simple; that, government should from today not bother itself to enter into any negotiation with these doctors since they have decided not to follow the due process of negotiation, but chose to satisfy the demands of their political paymasters.

Why should they embark on strike action when negotiations were still on-going to determine what is due them as regards their migration on to the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) and think that Ghanaians should still hold them into high esteem?

Why should our doctors think that they are more important than the rest of us in this country that they should be pampered even when their actions are improper and having serious consequences on human lives?

Did we force them to go into the medical practice or they opted voluntarily for that noble profession? Even though, we are all aware that the current decision by the nation’s doctors to embark on strike is politically motivated, the fact of the matter is that, they should be made to understand in clear terms that they are nobodies apart from being called doctors, and so therefore, cannot hold this country to ransom.

Left to us alone, government should allow them to continue with their shameful strike action, and go for some expatriate doctors to come and deliver quality health-care since they have cheaply sold their conscience to the NPP.

Of all the professionals that we have in this country who each are immensely contributing their quota to the development of this nation, which of them did government sponsor apart from doctors that they will not sit quietly and do what is expected of them, than embarking on unnecessary strike actions without considering its human cost to this country.

We have other professional bodies in this country whose services are more important than doctors so why should government waste its energy on doctors and make it look as if without them this country cannot function properly.

If they think they are better and more important than the rest of us, why do they seek the services of others? Are they important than our farmers who feed them, and that the entire country should burn because they have not benefited from SSSS?

To repeat, doctors are nobodies and are not more important than the rest of us because they also depend on others to live; and so why should we be begging them to call off their strike actions?

To those of us working on The Informer, they will be very foolish to call off the strike action, having shown that they are only stooges and apron strings to the NPP and do not have humane minds of their own.

Doctors are as ordinary as the rest of us who go about our duties to help Mother Ghana develop, and so therefore, should not be dignified unnecessary because they are nobodies; more important than many professionals as well as ordinary players in the development agenda of this country.