The Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital has suspended regular services to the general public following the declaration of a strike action by the Ghana Medical Association last Friday.
Mr. Mustapha Salifu, Public Relations Officer of the hospital, speaking with the Times newspaper yesterday said patients on admission at the hospital are, however, being attended to by doctors.
A visit to the hospital by the �Times� showed that, though there were a lot of patients at the Out Patient Department (OPD), they were not being attended to because of the strike action by the doctors.
Yesterday a patient, Clement Kuma, said he reported at the OPD at about 7:00 am but as at 10:00 a.m. he had not received any attention and when he enquired from the nurses he was told the doctors were not working.
Another patient, Mary Osei bonus, who had a wound on her right finger as a result of a bite from another woman said she reported to Hospital at 7:00 am but when at 10:40am she had not received treatment, her plight was noticed by a doctor who attended to her and asked her to report on Thursday for review.
At the Children�s Ward, there were six doctors attending to children on admission under emergency care. A specialist at the ward, Dr. Owusu Sekyere, explained that they were attending to the children because they were admitted before the strike action.
�We are not admitting new cases,� he stressed emphatically.
He cautioned that their action should not be misconstrued to mean a violation of the decision of the GMA, adding �we are solidly behind the GMA and support the strike action.�
When contacted the Chief Executive of the fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), Mr. George Smith-Graham, explained that in arriving at any job evaluation, raw scores and the organizational financial structure were taken into considerate in arriving at the final structure.
He said the GMA decided not to be part of any organizational structure and therefore wished to stand on its own. According to Mr. Smith-Graham, the salary structure which was being rejected by the GMA was developed with management of the Ministry of Health, the Ghana Health Service and the teaching hospitals.
He said the argument by the GMA that it was unfair for a medical officer to be placed on the same salary with a Deputy Chief Medical Assistant did not hold, because the placement of salaries is not only based on qualifications but also on experience which he said cannot be quantified.
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