Regional News of Tuesday, 25 October 2011

Source: Lens

PUSAG Urges Doctors To End Strike

The Private University Students Association of Ghana (PUSAG) has added its voice to the numerous calls from some sections of the Ghanaian public and other civil organizations on the controversial public sector doctors’ strike by calling on doctors to end their strike to safe lives. In a statement issued yesterday and copied to the Crystal Clear Lens, the National Media Executive of PUSAG, Mr. Eric Nii Odartey Lamptey emphasised the importance of doctors’ role in providing health services, noting that they are urgent and cannot be delayed any longer.

Over two weeks now, public sector doctors embarked on a nationwide strike action over some alleged discrepancies in the implementation of the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) and said they will continue with their month-long strike unless their demands are met, criticising the government for not responding positively towards their concerns.

But the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Private University Students Association of Ghana (PUSAG) in the statement stated “we wish to use this platform to humbly appeal to our brothers and sisters in the noble profession of Medicine and for that matter the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) to take steps to bring to an end to the almost three weeks of industrial strike.

As student leaders, we are touched by the plight of many innocent Ghanaians who walk daily to the government medical centres and hospitals with various conditions without hope as a result of the strike action. We sincerely believe that not even the doctors are please with the current situation where lives are being lost by the tickling of the clock”.

The statement also called on Ghanaians both healthy and the sick to appeal passionately to doctors to return to the wards to save lives that certainly can not be retrieved when lost.

“We also appeal to government, the National Labour Commission and all who have a direct role in solving this rather unfortunate impasse to eschew individualism and de-touch all personal sentiments so to enable an immediate end to the sad situation”, the statement continued.