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The Ghana Medical Association, GMA, definitely does not have the backing of many of its members as far as the strike action it has asked its members to embark on is concerned, with further threats to resign if their conditions are not met.

Since the strike action began, many doctors the ‘Daily posts’ has spoken to have slammed the decision of their leadership, opining that while they want an improvement in their conditions of service, firstly, what the GMA is demanding is unreasonably while the strike action is unconscionable.

A surgeon at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital had this to say when the ‘Daily Post’ talked to him yesterday. “I for one have always been against doctors going on strike because lives should be protected at all cost. We cannot always go back to clear backlog since some lives would have been lost already.

The government and the GMA should do everything possible to prevent such strikes in good sports…I just wish our leadership would do without their political lenses.”

One Dr. Thomas W. Anabah C.E.O. at Habana Medical Service and head of Department, Anesthesiology at School of Medicine and Health Science-UDS states his objection to the strike action on his Facebook page. He writes; “I can’t just imagine how a doctor will put up a fight for the service conditions first before the lives of his patients. Can we change our style of addressing issues without causing harm to our very patients? Yes we can. We have the ability, so let’s do it. Stop the strike now.

Indeed, many of the doctors have not only expressed their objection to the GMA’s call for strike but have in fact defied it. A visit to some hospitals outside the Greater Accra Region saw doctors at work, attending to patients.

Some of them who spoke to this paper but pleaded not to be named called on the government to heed to their demand for improved better working conditions though some conceded what the GMA placed before government is unreasonable.

“100 gallons of fuel for a consultant? ” Why? Is that consultant going to operate a filing station? One of the doctors asked rhetorically. Many Ghanaians are against with the huge demand of the GMA. Public opinion is demand.

“Let government grant the doctors’ wish and nurses, GNAT, NAGRAT, TEWU, UTAG, etc will follow with their own demands,” a nurse who spoke to this paper observed.