Go Back To Work, Minister Pleads GMA....

Ato Sarpong,Deputy Minister in Communication

“We are on our knees begging the striking doctors and appealing to them to go to work whilst we continue with negotiations, pleaded Ato Sarpong, a deputy Minister of Communications.

Though salaries could be delayed and paid later but then lives lost under the present circumstance where public doctors are on strike cannot be brought back said the Minister.

The Deputy Minister in communications made this appeal when the ministry of health took its turn at the weekly Meet-the-Press series in Accra yesterday.

Earlier, addressing a cross section of journalists in Accra, Health Minister, Alex Segbefia, stated that striking public sector doctors could face severe sanctions from government if they do not resume work by Thursday, August 20.

According to him, all public sector doctors who do not report to work on Thursday will be considered to have violated the Labour Act.

Mr Segbefia added that Ghanaian doctors are on an indefinite strike over government’s inability to agree on their conditions of service. They have given the government two more weeks to address their concerns or be faced with a complete withdrawal of their services from public hospitals.

He also told the journalists that some retired doctors have also agreed to return to work aside the 177 Cuban who are on their way to help Mother Ghana from these parlous times.

The government has described the strike as “illegal” and has pulled out of negotiation because it insists it cannot be “coerced” to heed the doctors’ demands.

However, the minister has appealed to the striking medical practitioners to return to the wards because “we cannot just go and fix a document and give to the doctors, it must go through a process, so stop the strike action and let us negotiate”.

Source: Today Newspaper