Toxic Strike: Minster of Health Joins Doctors' Strike

*By Akadu Ntiriwa Mensema, Ph. D.

“The Minister of Health, Joseph Yieleh Chireh, has received the blessings of

President John Evans Atta-Mills to go on a week leave at a crucial stage when public

sector doctors have taken off their stethoscope and refused to attend to emergency

cases. The Minister of Communication Haruna Iddrisu, who is acting in Yieleh

Chireh’s stead, said his colleague will be off for seven days and does not think it

would affect the current crisis ongoing in the health sector” (Ghanaweb, October 14,

2011).

Ah! Filmic signification of it all

Atta Mess-iah’s messy NDC

Dazed troubadours of chaos

Watersheds of letdowns

Fetishizing messianic chaos

Career gyrations of chaos

Minster of Health strikes

Yieleh Chireh is on strike

Like doctors

Like nurses

Like pharmacists

Elitist entitlements

Elites posing in SUVs

Ministering cargo-cults

Manicuring marginality

Of lethal doses of strike

Moronic elitist thieves

Thieves who prize cars

Cars they never make

Cars above all things

Above healthcare

Above good roads

Above good education

Above food & water

Above good electricity

Above future generations

Atta Mess-iah’s messy NDC

Circus of train-wrecks

Of deploying chaos

Of deceitful declarations

Of vacuous speeches

Of sterile policies

In search of poverty

In search of ruins

Atta Mess-iah’s theater

Of a better Ghana

Of a year in action

Of sod-cuttings

Where chaos is kinship

Of enduring anomies

Of birthing mediocrity

Of miragic progress

Like Saharan rivers

Always dry at source

Luxuriant-ing futility

With savage gaiety

Doctors on strike

Nurses on strike

Pharmacists to go on strike

Minister of Health on strike

Yieleh isn’t on leave

He is on elitist strike

The man of women

Ah! May be! Oh! May be

He will strike overseas

Soaring in aburokyire

To seek healthcare

Striking for healthcare

Better healthcare overseas

To heal his sickness

Of strikes everywhere

Doctors

Pharmacists

Politicians

Killers of the dream

Perpetual elitist thieves

Mercenaries of doom

Of wanton corruption

Of wanton negligence

Of wanton entitlements

Killers of the dream

Pen-robbers of our time

Luminaries of theft

With tragic policies

Of tragic healthcare

Of tragic road-building

Of tragic “tree”-schools

Of tragic water, electricity

Ah! Minister of Health

Has gone elsewhere

To heal his own strike

So all strike, strike & strike

Strikes from local doctors

Strikes from local nurses

Strikes from local pharmacists

Strikes from local hospitals

Hospitals of strikes

Of dilapidation

Of mismanagement

Of indiscipline

Of corruption

Our viruses of healthcare

Our trappings of health

Our deathtraps of health

*Akadu N. Mensema, Ph. D., is a nationalist Denkyira beauty. She is a trained oral

historian cum sociologist and Professor in the USA. She lives in Pennsylvania with

her great mentor and teaches Africa-area studies at a college in Maryland. In her

pastime, she writes what critics have called “populist hyperbolic, satirical”

poetry. She can be reached at akadumensema@yahoo.com