Striking junior doctors suspend strike

Accra, Aug. 15, GNA - Junior Doctors of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, who threatened to embark on a strike action from Tuesday, have suspended their decision.

Members arrived at the decision after an emergency meeting held on Monday, Dr Edward Omane-Boamah, spokesperson for the junior doctors, told the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Tuesday.

He said the decision was taken pending the assurance from the Controller and Accountant-General's Department (C&AGD) that the anomalies had been identified and were being resolved.

He noted that members had worked assiduously to ensure that house officers, who received zero net pay for the month of July, had all their monies including their arrears from April paid by the end of the month. Dr Omane-Boamah said they had been assured by the C&AGD that they would have their pay slip by August 20 and their salaries paid by August 28, which would include their arrears from April.

Junior doctors of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and the members of the Ghana Medical Association over the weekend threatened to embark on a work-to-rule action if outstanding issues pertaining to their salaries and other conditions of service were not resolved by 1700 hours on Monday.

They said they would close from work at 1700 hours just as other Government workers, who worked for eight hours a day. Mr Kwabena Adjei-Mensah, Deputy Controller & Accountant General, Financial Management Services, on Monday issued a circular explaining that their system during the July payroll processing, recognised the manually computed salary arrears as overpayments made in June and therefore automatically recovered the perceived overpayments. Consequently, 53 House Officers received zero net pay and 90 House Officers received reduced net pay.

Mr Adjei-Mensah has given the assurance that all valid omissions on the Health Sector payroll submitted to the Controller and Accountant-General (C&AG) had been processed for inclusion in the August payroll. 15 Aug. 06