Government pleads with doctors for more time— Over their grievances

THE Minister of Health, Dr Benjamin Kunbuor, has sent a passionate appeal to members of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) not to go on strike but allow the government sometime to meet their demands.
He said although their action might be legitimate, they should take into consideration the number of lives which might be lost should they embark on the strike.
Appearing yesterday for the first time at the weekly meet-the-press series organised by the Ministry of Information in Accra, Dr Kunbuor said, “as the health minister, I have it as my prayer when I wake up each morning, that no health worker goes on strike because it means one thing — loss of lives”.
He maintained that he had been in constant touch with the medical doctors and gave the assurance he was doing all he could to ensure that their demands were met soon.
In a communiqué read at a press conference to climax the 52nd annual general meeting of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) in Koforidua on November 6, 2010, the leadership of the association gave an ultimatum that November 30, 2010 should be the deadline for the payment of their outstanding on-duty-facilitation allowance, otherwise they would withdraw their services.
The President of the association, Dr Emmanuel Adom Winful, said it was unfortunate that for almost two years after negotiations for the allowance, its implementation had not been fully carried out, making majority of doctors not being paid the allowance.
Addressing the well-attended media event, the health minister said the mission of the health sector was to contribute to the socio-economic development of a local health industry by promoting health for all persons living in Ghana, using well motivated personnel.
“The ultimate goal of the ministry is to ensure a healthy and productive population that reproduces itself safely by providing the following health services: Promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative,” the minister indicated.
Touching on the negative attitude of some health personnel, which affected health care delivery, Dr Kunbour said much as it was a fact that some of the personnel did not treat patients properly, the attitude of some members of the public was equally a problem, which must be addressed, and pointed out that there was the need for the public to also understand the difficulty in which health personnel found themselves due to under-staffing.
He indicated that specific priorities of the health sector under the “Better Ghana” agenda of the government included the need to reduce maternal and under-five mortality, ensure efficient co-ordination in the control of malaria, tuberculosis (TB), HIV and AIDS and to scale up universal access to health care through a policy that allowed for one-time premium payment under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
Others, according to the minister, were to improve on institutional and emergency care, as well as epidemic preparedness, improve on water supply in health facilities, and institute bed rationing or rotation system in all hospitals to avoid what he termed regular floor patients.
On the implementation of the one-time-premium payment, he said the government had stated its commitment to scaling up universal health care for residents of the country through a policy that allowed for one-time-premium payment for membership of the NHIS.
He pointed out that a nation-wide survey to determine the willingness of the citizenry to pay the one-time-premium was conducted in 2009 and also the road map towards the implementation of the initiative had been developed awaiting the passage of the new NHIS law to pave the way for the presidential launch.
On maternal and child health, Dr Kunbuor said specific interventions introduced to reduce deaths were free maternal and child health services under the NHIS, equipping hospitals with obstetric facilities, improving referral system, as well as ongoing leadership training to improve staff attitude.
The health minister mentioned routine immunisation and nation-wide campaigns, malarial control, HIV and AIDS control/prevention, provision of anti-retroviral therapy, regenerative health and nutrition, TB control, guinea worm eradication programme, control of cholera and meningitis outbreaks and control of the Pandemic Influenza (H1N1 2009) as some of the achievements the health sector had chalked up.
Dr Kunbour said currently, the nation had 24 fully functioning ambulance stations throughout the country, adding that the government was planning to expand the National Ambulance Service (NAS) to cover all district capitals. The minister said plans were far advanced to procure 355 new ambulances to augment the existing fleet.