Bureaucratic delays in issuing clearance for medical officers must stop - GMA

The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) says it continues to express its displeasure at the delays in issuing financial clearance for medical officers.

This was contained in a statement issued by the association at its National Executive Meeting held today [Friday].

The statement said: ‘’the GMA continues to express our dissatisfaction with the bureaucratic delays associated with the granting of financial clearance for medical officers which results in highly trained medical officers sitting at home unemployed for months whiles several hospitals and in some cases whole districts are without doctors.’’

The statement called on government in particular the Ministries of Finance and Health ''to rectify this administrative bottleneck immediately to enable these medical officers begin work and also take all the necessary steps to prevent future occurrence.’’

Some trained doctors who are currently at home unemployed are asking the government to urgently resolve the issues that surround their absorption into the public health system.

The doctors, who completed their housemanship in 2017, have since not been absorbed by the Ghana Health Service.

Deputy General Secretary of the GMA, Dr. Titus Beyuo in a separate interview with Rainbow Radio 87.5FM said whiles we have some facilities away; we have jobless doctors at home.

He emphasized the need for government to do all it takes to clear the jobless doctors to go and serve citizens who are in need of their services.

He said, there a number of hospitals without doctors yet we have jobless doctors at home all because of delays in issuing financial clearance.