Health services workers union champions the rights of the aged

The General Secretary of the Health Services Workers Union of TUC Ghana, Brother Reynolds Ofosu Tenkorang, has expressed deep concern about how longer life expectancy has not been accompany by longer working lives.

According to Mr. Tenkorang, average retirement ages have dropped posing a threat to the financial viability of public budgets and as a result, older people risk being socially excluded.

To the General Secretary of the Health Services Workers Union of TUC Ghana older men and women have same rights as everyone else. “We are all born equal and this does not change as we grow older” he opined.

The General Secretary made these observations during the opening session of a five day residential Training of Trainers Programme for Industrial Relations Officers and some selected national officers of the Union here in Accra.

The training programme is an activity of an Elderly Care Project which is being implemented by Health Services Workers Union, Trades Union Congress of Ghana, LO/FTF in collaboration with FOA of Denmark with funding from CISU also of Denmark.

The Elderly Care Project aims to prepare workers as well as the general public on the management of elderly care issues. Additionally the project seeks to engage the Ministry of Gender and Social Protection on the implementation of the National Aging Policy and its implications on the Ghanaian populace.

Putting older people’s rights into context, Mr. Tenkorang noted that human rights are the rights people are entitled to simply because they are human beings, irrespective of age, citizenship, nationality, race, ethnicity, language ,gender, sexuality or abilities. To the GS when these inherent rights are respected people are able to live with dignity and equality free from discrimination.

Also addressing participants one of the Project Coordinators, Brother Franklin Owusu-Ansah said in Ghana also there is surge in the trend of aging population.

“In Ghana, the population aged above sixty years was 6726 at independence in 1957. In 2010, it was estimated that the Ghanaian population aged sixty and above was nearly 1.5 million representing 6% of the total population, an increase of over 220% since independence. This age group is expected to grow to nearly 2.5 million by 2025, and to almost 6 million by 2025, and to almost 6 million by 2050,representing 14% of the total population”, Brother Owusu-Ansah noted.

Adding “the growing elderly population poses increasing burden of disease and cost to individuals, families, communities, health system and the government. There is therefore an urgent need to assess the ageing situation in Ghana and outline policy and intervention options for the future”.

He said the project predicts that by 2025, a social sector with focus on quality care for the elderly and decent working conditions for eldercare workers would be established in Ghana with an active involvement of trade unions. Meanwhile he said, by 2018 Health Services Workers Union should be publicly recognised as the Union representing eldercare workers as well as the knowledge and capacity of TUC Ghana and Health Services Workers Union has been strengthened in order to secure that by 2018 the implementation of the National Policy on Ageing is progressing in Ghana.