Our withdrawal from MDC won’t affect health delivery – Physician assistants

The aggrieved Ghana Physician Assistants Association says their decision to withdraw from the Ghana Medical and Dental Association will not affect health delivery in the country.

The Ghana Physician Assistants Association has suspended the renewal of their licenses with the Ghana Medical and Dental Council effective next year 2023.

In a press conference announcing their decision, the Physician Association enumerated reasons for their decision including what they described as unfair treatment by the Medical and Dental Council.

According to them, there has not been any improvement in their lives since they joined the Council, and lack career progression.

However, speaking to Starr News, the Association indicated that the Ministry of Health knows what to do to resolve their grievances with the Ghana Medical and Dental Association.

“The Ministry knows that when we are not with the Medical and Dental Council, we can still work without causing or affecting the public, our clients that we serve who are the good people of Ghana. Our absence from work can have a very big bite on the clients which we don’t want either. We can choose to say okay we don’t have the license, we are not in good standing to practice so let’s stay home. But that is not what we want. We have an issue with the ministry which we know they can tackle, so they should do the needful,” the National Public Relations Officer for the association, Mohammed Ali explained.

He continued: “We have never said we are not going to work, it is an issue that we have with our Regulator and so we have worked before over two decades without being under the Medical and Dental Council. So we can apply the same rule while we work at getting our own Council.

“In fact, this is not something undoable it is done elsewhere in Africa. Where we borrowed our course from the United States of America they are doing the same thing there. We will not have a problem with the Medical and Dental Council if this Council really thinks about the PA profession.

“When we were joining them we were happy but then to go there and be suppressed, sidelined, and no growth nothing, come on. It’s over a decade and I think this is the right time for us to stop. It has been so unfair and demoralizing for this union and we think it is enough.”