4th Annual Conference of HASAG opens

Mr. Alban Bagbin, Minister of Health, has pledged the commitment of his Ministry in ensuring that all channels are exhausted in finding a satisfactory solution to concerns raised by health accounting staff over their migration to the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).

He stated this in address at the opening ceremony of the 4th Annual Conference of the Health Accounting Staff Association of Ghana (HASAG) at Takoradi, on Friday.

The conference is under the theme “Improving Financial Management Systems in the Health Sector in the Face of dwindling Financial Resources”.

Mr. Bagbin said he perfectly agreed that health accounting staff need to be highly motivated in order to play their roles effectively and efficiently as key members of the healthcare delivery team at every level.

“I would like to assure you that no efforts will be spared at ensuring that your members remain motivated to support the better health for Better Ghana Agenda”, he said.

Mr. Bagbin said health workers need to work hard to deliver quality healthcare to the people now that the country is in transition from a developing country to a middle income country.

He said this calls for concerted efforts from all stakeholders to enable the country to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 4 and 5 by 2015.

Mr. Bagbin said government with support of development partners, continues to mobilize the needed financial resources to carry out various programmes particularly towards the attainment of the goals.

In an address read for him, Dr. Frank Nyonator, Acting Director General of the Ghana Health Service, said skills and competence of finance professionals in the service need to be enhanced to enable them to deliver quality financial management support to the service.

He called on the leadership of the association to use the occasion to educate its members on the skills needed to improve their performance.

Dr. Nyonator also urged the leadership of the association to develop a code of conduct to regulate members and to ensure professionalism in the discharge of their duties.

Mr. Justice Ahorlu, National President of the Association, said the morale of the members was low and almost broken down as a result of poor motivation.

He asked the management of the GHS to assist to get the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) to correct wide disparities in salaries in the service.

Mr. Ahorlu said the attitude of the FWSC is pushing members of the association to the wall and the association “Has been restraining the members all this time”.

“If no interventions are offered, the Health sector will experience an unprecedented and gargantuan industrial action in the history of Ghana from the so-called non-clinical staff”, he said.