Junior doctors reject one month salary

Junior doctors numbering about 91 have rejected the one month salary offer in lieu of the accumulated 10 months unpaid salaries owed them by the government.

They have, therefore, threatened to make the offices of the Controller and Accountant General Department (CAGD) their ‘sleeping place’ from July 27 until they receive the 10 months salary arrears.

“We will eat the food they eat, we will stay there with them until they hear us…they are all Christians and so we don’t understand why they are doing that. We are suffering and sometimes what we will eat even becomes difficult. Is that what the Bible teaches them?” Dr Nana Kissi Attafuah, spokesperson for the doctors lamented.

The doctors, mainly from the University of Ghana Medical School, have not been paid since September 2014 when they began working at their respective hospitals.

Speaking on Peace FM on Tuesday, Dr Attafuah explained that the CAGD offered to pay them only one month salary out of the 10 months and “we told them that is unacceptable… We’ve worked for 10 months and the best they can do for us is to pay us a month’s salary and then ask us to apply individually for the arrears? We can’t take it anymore…because we are few they think if we go on strike the impact will not be felt…on the 27th we are all coming to Accra.”

By the end of July 2015, 91 junior doctors would have worked for 11 months without pay, a period during which some may have been forced to live on GHc2 a day.

According to the spokesperson for the doctors who works with the Cape Coast Government Hospital, their crime could be that they love the nation.

“What is more patriotic than House Officers who have paid exorbitant fees through medical schools, who have sat and burnt the midnight oil on several occasions, come out and for 11 months work without a single penny in our accounts?” he said on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Wednesday.

Dr Attafuah agonised about their misplaced confidence in public officials at the CAGD, Ministries of Health and Finance who told them to wait as far back as July 2014.

“They kept playing the waiting, waiting game and we kept falling for it,” he said.

Not anymore, he said, and stated that come the end of July, the 91 doctors scattered across the country will be descending on the capital, Accra, where in the offices of the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department, each doctor will present every document or certificate required for their salaries to be processed.

“We are gathering every single document we have from our birth certificate, BECE certificate, the only thing we cannot provide yet is our death certificate,” Dr Attafuah indicated.

The doctor gave the breakdown of the 91 unpaid trainees as follows: 30 House Officers are stationed with the 37 Military Hospital, 23 are with the Cape Coast Government Hospital, seven more at Tema Government Hospital, 11 with the Brong Ahafo Government Hospital, four each with the Volta Regional Hospital and Police Hospital and one each with LEKMA and Holy Family Hospitals.

He believes one of the reasons they have not been paid is that they have not put sufficient pressure on the authorities partly because they are scattered across the country.

Dr Attafuah explained that 94 House Officers stationed at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in the Ashanti Region were paid because by their sheer numbers, the net effect of laying down their tools was huge.

But for his colleagues, a hospital may not suffer greatly if some seven doctors embark on a strike, he argued.

He explained how they have been surviving these past months.

Using the Cape Coast Government Hospital as an example, Dr Attafuah revealed that management of the hospital gives the doctors an allowance of GHc350 if the trainee lives in accommodation provided by the hospital and enjoys free utilities.