Public Agenda

"Doctors threaten to resign...New doubts raised over pay deal", says a front page banner of Public Agenda. In the accompanying story, the paper says doctors in public hospitals are threatening to resign en masse if the government fails to act promptly on the agreement which ended their two-week strike action. The Public Agenda says doctors at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and other public health institutions in Accra have expressed grave doubts about the government's commitment to the pay deal. Last December, doctors in the public health system laid down their tools to press for better wages and conditions of service. The paper says though the doctors have since returned to work following the agreement reached with the government, indications are that they are suspicious about the government's preparedness to meet the terms of the agreement and other issues raised in the initial discussions. These include wage increases, payment of allowances for extra working hours and replacement of worn-out working tools. The Public Agenda quotes Dr Dzokoto Dzapata Pomenya, secretary to the Greater Accra brach of the Ghana Medical Association, as saying that the uneasiness of the doctors stems from past experiences in which the government failed to honour similar agreements while their counterparts in the military and the police were rewarded for working extra hours at the 3 Military and the Police hospitals.