Workers of Koforidua Central Hospital To Go On Demo

Koforidua, Nov. 20, GNA- Workers of the Koforidua Regional Hospital with the exception of medical doctors, on Thursday embarked on a two-hour peaceful demonstration at the hospital to protest against the low level of hours allocated to them in respect of the Additional Duty Hour Allowance (ADHA).

The demonstration, which brought work at the hospital to a standstill involved about 400 workers wearing red armbands who converged at the conference centre of the hospital where a resolution was presented to the management of the hospital and copies made available to the press.

Later, the Staff Welfare Executive of the hospital went to present copies of their resolution to the New Juaben Municipal Chief Executive, the Eastern Regional Minister and the Regional Director of Ghana Health Services.

In the resolution, the workers complained that, while medical doctors of the hospital were allocated 200 hours across board "without verifying the exact number of extra-duty hours made, except when the doctor travel, the highest extra duty hours given to other workers of the hospital rarely exceed 80 hours per month."

The workers alleged that there were only "a few doctors who made between 120 to 150 extra duty hours every month and in the same vein, due to the shortage of staff, there are some health workers who make more than the 80 hours allocated to them."

The resolution observed that, as a result of the existing situation, the 23 medical doctors of the hospital take home 31 per cent or 121 million cedis of the 430 million cedis ADHA allocated to the hospital monthly, while the remaining 600 workers of the hospital share the rest.

Despite the reduction in the hours given to them, the workers complained that when the ADHA for the hospital get to the Regional Directorate of Health Service, significant proportion of the money is kept there and thereby further deprive serving workers what was due them.

The workers alleged that "not all monies allocated for the ADHA is disbursed and that significant proportion of the money that translate to over 400 million cedis as at November 1, 2003, is being kept at the Regional Health Administration thereby depriving serving officers of due hours performed allowance" and called for investigations into the official who authorised the retention of the money at the Regional Directorate.

The workers, therefore, demand an upward revision of the additional duty hours to all workers, except the doctors, to a minimum of 100 hours and a proper system of genuine documentation of number of extra duty hours performed by doctors put in place.

The workers called for transparency in the allocation of the ADHA in the region and suggested that each worker be given fair opportunity to outline his job function and the number of extra duty hours performed in respect of what was authorised by his or her departmental head.

The workers appealed to the Minister of Health and the Director of Health Service to intervene to avoid degeneration of the situation.

The workers threatened that they would be forced to embark on a total strike action if within fourteen days from the date of postage of the resolution, negotiations were not initiated to meet their demands.

Receiving the resolution on behalf of the Management of the Hospital, Dr. Obeng Apori, Clinical Administrator of the Hospital, reminded the workers that the Ghana Health Service forms part of the essential services of the country, hence they have to follow the laid down regulation for resolution of their grievance.