Nana Addo appeals to Doctors

• Posted on August 13, 2015August 13, 2015
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

THE NEW Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential candidate for 2016, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has appealed to striking doctors to return to the negotiating table and resolve their deadlock with the government.

Nana Addo has also advised government to, as a matter of urgency, look at the best ways of dealing with the concerns of the doctors to help save the lives of numerous patients who visit public hospitals in the country without any treatment.

“For nearly two weeks now, the people of Ghana have looked on helplessly and been in a state of extreme anxiety as a healthcare system, already under a lot of strain, has almost shut down with a strike by medical doctors. A strike action by members of the Ghana Medical Association affects the majority of citizens as it is the GMA members who are the doctors in the public hospitals on which we all rely for our health needs,” the NPP flagbearer underscored in a press release issued in Accra yesterday.

Improper Handling

According to him, it is most unfortunate that the negotiations have been allowed to degenerate into a strike action.

“It goes without much argument that medical doctors, as a group of professionals, do not easily resort to strike action.  And it is important that all those who seek to comment on the problem, especially those who speak on behalf of government, avoid the name-calling that has characterised government’s handling of the dispute so far.

“It is absurd that some members of government are seeking to politicise this strike by portraying the NPP as being the instigators. It is an insult to the intelligence and integrity of the thousands of doctors in this country,” Nana Addo articulated.

He continued that the assertion by the doctors that their proposals were for the 2016 budget should give government ample space to consider and, after negotiations, conclude on as well as incorporate what is agreed in the 2016 budget.

Negotiators

Calling on government negotiators to deal with the doctors as patriotic, knowledgeable and mature adults, Nana Akufo-Addo said the media war and selective leaking of negotiating documents should cease, adding that the intimidation and threats should cease as well.

“The problem we face will not be solved even if all retired doctors should be drafted into our hospitals; the prospect of hiring retired doctors should therefore not be held out as part of the negotiations. The solution does not lie in asking people to go to private medical centres that accept National Health Insurance. Many such institutions are already opting out of the scheme with the continued difficulty in paying for their services,” he noted.

Advice

“I would respectfully tell the president of the republic that government cannot hide behind the IMF bailout programme to frustrate these important negotiations. The IMF programme seeks rightly to manage the government’s own home-grown problem of fiscal imbalance over the last few years and a component of this is to limit the nominal increase in the total wage bill to 10 percent, supported by, among other measures, strict limit on net hiring in the public sector, which invariably affects emoluments,” he charged.

Reminding government that the IMF’s freeze on employment excludes the education and health sectors, he said there were over 2,000 qualified nurses and midwives at home who have not been employed, even though they are needed desperately by health facilities across the country.

He therefore urged government not to see negotiations on conditions of service with health workers in a negative light.