Ghana Medical Association
•GMA has given government a two-month ultimatum to address its concerns
•The doctors says they will down their tools if government does not meet their demands
•Ghana is currently experiencing the third wave of the coronavirus
Amid growing concerns of the third wave of coronavirus sweeping across the country, the Ghana Medical Association is threatening to embark on strike.
The Association has given the government two months to address its concerns or see them down their tools in the various healthcare facilities in the country.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, August 3, 2021, the GMA announced how it plans to systematically withdraw its service if the government does not meet their demands by September 30.
The strike action will begin with the suspension of Out-Patient Service from October 1. If by October 15, nothing has been done about their demands, the association of medical doctors say they will completely suspend every service they offer and not show up at hospitals at all.
“Withdrawal of all in-patient services will begin the following week (effective Friday 8th October 2021) if all the issues are still not completely resolved,” the communiqué explained further.
Explaining the basis for their intended strike action, Justice Yankson, the General Secretary of the GMA said that the association has been “more than magnanimous enough and the government should be able to honour its commitment.”
“Now, the implementation of that documentation has been fraught with problems. We have done our ultimate best to get this resolved behind the scenes. We’ve had countless numbers of meetings,” the statement said further.
He added that the doctors view the strike as the last resort as the government has consistently failed to address their issues.
“We’ve done our utmost best under the circumstances to get the matters resolved. We have had to take this direction because that probably seems to be our last resort. Even that, we still have given the government ample time, and we expect that in good faith, they should be able to discharge their obligations towards us,” he added.
The threat to take industrial action comes at a time when the countries COVID-19 are surging with fears that the dread third wave is being experienced.
The latest figures released by the Ghana Health Service indicate that the country is dealing with 6,278 with 844 deaths.