Demands being made by striking medical consultants at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) have been described by the Minister of Health, Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, as akin to “blood money.”
The doctors have already laid down their tools over the refusal of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) to pay up some agreed top-up on their allowances.
Daily Guide gathered that the contentious amount has been in arrears for about eight months.
A visibly infuriated Bagbin was talking to a group of journalists in Wa in the Upper West Region last week, and in no uncertain terms, expressed his extreme frustration at his constant haggling with the medical doctors for their persistent demands.
The Minister who appeared to be at his wit ends, yelled, “Pampering is a thing of the past so when you go on strike, pack out,” and asked the specialist doctors to vacate their positions.
According to him, the NDC government would not be blackmailed into paying up money that has not been duly earned. “The public sector cannot keep on pumping money into your pocket when you are not rendering the requisite service,” he complained adding, “There are ways, procedures of doing these things. Pass through them, but don’t sacrifice people to get your money, that is blood money.”
Mr. Babgin’s stance was set to spark a serious face-off with the KATH consultants who numbered approximately 100.
According to Dr. Frank Ankobeah, the decision to call off their industrial action would depend solely on the government’s posture and its willingness to settle the arrears.
However, Mr. Babgin’s utterance showed that the government was not exactly keen at compromising its stance. This could result in a protracted stalemate as the strike entered its second week.
The health minister was convinced that the doctors’ action was illegal because they allegedly, did not channel their grievances through the approved dispute resolution channels.
The consultants also doubled as lecturers at the medical school of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and were by default, supervisors of junior doctors at the hospital.
DAILY GUIDE gathered that the strike of the medical doctors had a far-reaching impact on the flow of work at the top class teaching hospital because junior doctors there were planning to lay down their tools if an amicable settlement was not reached between the government and the consultants who supervised them.
The Ministry of Health and the medical fraternity have had frosty relationships in recent times. The main reasons have either been because of government’s refusal to pay up their allowances or government’s failure to improve their conditions of service.
For instance, in March 2012, surgeons at KATH joined an indefinite strike action embarked upon by local junior doctors who were protesting what they describe as “poor state of affairs” at the KATH.
The surgeons listed a litany of complaints including irregular power and water supply, lack of drugs, broken down equipment, especially at the Accident and Emergency Centre and general congestion at the medical facility. They indicated that the situation was preventing them from effectively conducting surgery.
In recent times, several other segments of the medical fraternity across the country have had causes to raise issues with the government about their conditions of service; the latest being an impending strike today by the public hospital pharmacists over single spine migration.
Source: Raphael Adeniran/d-gUIDE
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