Private lab scientists to soon join GAMLS strike – Ashanti Regional Chair

The Ashanti Regional Chair of the Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS), Eric Kofi Aidoo, has said private lab scientists would soon join their colleagues in the public sector in the ongoing nationwide strike which started from the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in the Ashanti Region.

KATH lab scientists began a week-long sit-down strike in protest of the posting of two lab physicians to the haematology unit to ostensibly superintend their work.

Following the expiration of a week’s ultimatum, the KATH lab scientists escalated the sit-down to a full-blown indefinite strike.

Their colleagues in public hospitals in other parts of the country also joined the strike on Thursday, 27 May 2021.

This has meant that private hospitals have been inundated with lab tests.

However, Mr Aidoo told Class News that even the private lab scientists, some of whom are members of GAMLS, would soon join their public sector colleagues in the strike.

“What we were expecting the Labour Commission and the Ministry of Health to do was to just speak to the CEO [of KATH] and say: ‘You appointed these people into the labs; just call them back and let’s have a level playing field so that we can sit down and resolve the issue,” he complained.

“Now, the private [labs] are the ones helping out but I’m telling you that in no time, if the issue is not resolved, I bet to say that the private [labs] would also join because we have our members who are also working in the private labs and, so, if the issue is not resolved as early as we expect it, the private [labs] would also join.”