Doctors: Work to rule has started

Accra, May 18, GNA - Deputy Health Minister, Dr Benjamin Kumbuor on Monday said even though the ministry had pleaded with doctors to give the Government some 'breathing space" to address issues of salaries and working conditions no concrete agreement had been reached.

He said all executives of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) were not able to attend a meeting to deliberate on the issue and had therefore been rescheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, May 19, to find an amicable solution to the problem at hand.

In an interview with GNA in Accra, the Deputy Minister said, "We will have to wait for that critical 1700 hours and see what happens" adding that it was his wish that things would turn around for the better.

Meanwhile General Secretary of GMA, Dr Frank Serebuor, has said that doctors would not relent on their work-to-rule action if their demands to review salaries and working conditions were not met. Professor Nii Otu Nartey, Chief Executive Officer of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital has assured Ghanaians that management had instituted a contingency plan should the doctors walk out of the hospital at 1700 hours.

However, he would not give details of the plan saying they were still holding meetings to fine-tune the proposed plan. Management, he said was in position to take care of the situation should the doctors withdraw their services.

Hospital sources confirmed to GNA that by 1700 hours, doctors on duty had started leaving the consulting rooms and the hospital for their homes adding that only emergency cases were seen at the Surgical Department.

The GMA over the weekend said the position of the National Executive Council affected all doctors nationwide and not just junior doctors, noting "we fully support the adoption of measures to bring some closure to these thorny issues".

The statement noted that since 2006 salaries of doctors had not been reviewed despite several attempts to get the issues resolved. It explained that negotiations had stalled since the last meeting held on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 without any consensus on either the salary review or the conditions of service.