Dr Adusei Opoku, GMA President
Yesterday the industrial action by doctors was upped to a new level – no emergency would be attended to – creating understandable panic among the populace.
We have been constrained to return to a subject which can never be over-flogged, considering the negative impact it has on the people.
We have observed the occasional verbal attacks on the men and women who power the health delivery system in the country and wish to react that these are as unnecessary as they are unfortunate.
We have also noted the explanation by the doctors that the president has not been properly briefed about their demands, especially when the implementation of the new pay package is expected to commence. They have said that 2016 is the date for the commencement and not now as propagandists seek to impress upon Ghanaians just so they can incite them against the doctors. If the doctors have a point then we find it regrettable that the president is working on false premises. This being the case, there is no wonder that the impasse is not being addressed. So it has so far been much ado about nothing.
With this realisation, therefore, we think that the president and the doctors should have a rethink about their strategies because of the false premises, as they were presented to the head of state.
The whole impasse can be managed provided sincerity is made the cornerstone of negotiations. The propagandists are still active spewing words which are intended to foul the atmosphere and make it impossible for any meaningful outcome to be registered.
It is unfortunate that some Ghanaians, especially those in politics, are not appreciating the danger posed by the doctors’ strike, preferring to wish it away by a brush of the hand, of course contemptuously.
We have heard some of them boast of the Cuban doctors’ import option as a way of calling the bluff of the Ghanaian doctors, as though it were a cut and dry affair. So whatever happened to the experience our local doctors are going to keep to themselves in the event of a mass Cuban doctors’ import?
There is no way that such Cuban doctors can sufficiently fill the vacuum created by the local doctors – a fact we should get in our heads before passing those nonsensical comments which continue to incense the medical officers.
The reference to the Cuban doctors and others are just evidence of government’s inability to weather the storm of the strike. There is always a way out of such challenges provided both sides are ready to make compromises here and there. Not however when the aggrieved segment is made to look bad among the citizenry by government agents.
Let us not deceive ourselves that the strike won’t spawn negative fallouts.