Doctors' Threat To Protest Unfair -Minister

Government will not take lightly a threats by health workers to embark on strike actions because of the delay in their Additional Duty Hours Allowances (ADHA), Dr Kwaku Afriyie, Minister of Health warned on Saturday.

"This is completely unacceptable and government will not be diplomatic about it. It is a sad thing, the ADHA is just an allowance, and if it delays why not put in an application to inquire, why issue an ultimatum to government to embark on a strike action."

The Minister said this in reaction to an ultimatum he said junior doctors had issued to government over the delay in their ADHA. He was speaking at the third Annual National Health Awards Night in Accra to honour Ghanaian health workers with the aim of reducing if not halt completely, the increasing rate of the migration of personnel to seek greener pastures.

Dr Afriyie said, "Let us temper our demands with realism by appreciating that government is faced with budget constraints. This kind of culture must cease."

He said currently there were so many proposals before Parliament with respect to health workers' remuneration and government was doing all it could to ensure that the conditions of Ghanaian health personnel corresponded to international standard requirement.

He said the call for salary consolidation would bring problems of imbalances in the overall structure that could lead to a de facto position adding; "If we consolidate your salary, it will even be that some of you will earn more than the President of Ghana.

Dr Afriyie said though the ADHA was introduced mainly as an intervention to compensate health workers for extra hours of work, it had not yielded the desired result of reducing the exodus of personnel.

He said this had placed undue strain on the few health staff that had decided to stay and work in Ghana adding, "currently the ministry is adopting a multi-pronged approach in addition to the ADHA concept to further address the retention of healthcare professional in the country.

"Health workers must be very conscious of the reality on the ground. Since I assumed office government budget to the sector has risen from nine to 12 per cent and we are working so hard to abide by the Abuja Principle, which fixed the budget contribution at 15 per cent," he added.

Dr Afriyie said Ghana was currently at the forefront of calling on the International body to enact a code of ethics for international health workers in order to halt or check the exodus of health personnel.

"African Health Ministers recently adopted a resolution on a number of issues including the problem of brain drain of health workers which would soon reach the international health body for consideration," he announced. The Minister also noted that the proposed post-graduate medical college to offer training for dental technologists, radiologists and others would start by the end of this year.

In all 64 health personnel made up of 12 retirees, 31 women with 50 from other regions won awards through a careful selection criterion by their respective health institutions and agencies.

The retirees received cash prizes of four million cedis each. Ten award winners, one from each region and two special winners received a 29-inch television each for the first prize, while those who won the second prize received double-decker refrigerators. The third and fourth prizes were made up of freezers and gas cookers.