Handover government properties- Bagbin charges striking pharmacists

Mr. Alban Bagbin, the Minister of Health on Thursday directed hospital administrators to ensure that striking pharmacists handover government properties as they continue their industrial action.

He said though the striking pharmacists had their right to embark on strike to demand for better conditions of service “they must not be allowed to keep government properties”.

Mr. Bagbin gave the directive when he addressed staff of the Brong-Ahafo Regional Hospital at a mini durbar in Sunyani.

The Minister of Health is on a two-day visit to the Region.

He said the health status of the citizenry was very dear to the heart of the government and it had instituted a number of interventions that would make the sector more attractive to enhance quality healthcare delivery.

Mr. Bagbin said the government would not tolerate attitudes and behaviour of some health professionals that would tend to “draw back the clock of progress” in the sector.

He said the work of all the 75 different professions in the health sector was recognizable and appreciable but their conditions of service would vary depending on job evaluation.

Mr. Bagbin said the government and for that matter the Fair Wages and Salary Commission was dialoguing with labour and trade unions to ensure that all workers in the public sector were placed under the right scale on the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).

He noted that in a developing country like Ghana, industrial actions would push back development and it was appropriate if workers who are not satisfied with their conditions of service resort to dialogue in addressing grievances.

Dr. Catejan Jones-Takyi, Head of the Psychiatric Unit of the Hospital, said the hospital owed suppliers huge sums of money because of the low tariff paid by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

He called for the re-introduction of the donor pool fund to enable the hospital raise more funds to disburse internally.

Dr. Jones-Takyi said the hospital’s central air condition was not functioning well, whiles almost all refrigerators at the morgue were faulty and needed urgent attention.

Mr. Bagbin earlier inspected work on the GHC25, 000.00 conference center for the hospital. The 300-seating capacity center, is being funded through the hospital’s internally generated fund.