Friday, 26 April

COVID-19: Respond to doctors’ demand to avert strike – Minority to gov’t

Politics
MP for Juaboso, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh,

The Minority in Parliament has asked the government of Ghana to listen to the cry of the frontline health workers in order to prevent any strike from them.

Doctors at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital have threatened to lay down their tools due to inadequate materials and logistics to deal with cases of the coronavirus outbreak in Ghana.

In a memo to their Head of Department, the doctors decried the usage of a side ward as an isolation centre without the necessary Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

“We write to express our general dissatisfaction with the preparedness or lack thereof of the department to combat the current COVID-19 pandemic. We also wish to express our displeasure with the events surrounding the hospital’s first confirmed case.

“Firstly, the pandemic; an existential threat to us, you will agree has to be handled with decisiveness and transparency. It is based on this that, we are against the actions or inactions taken before, during and after the case had been confirmed,” parts of the memo read.

Reacting to this in an interview with Accra 100.5FM’s parliamentary correspondent Richard Appiah Sarpong on Friday, April 3, the Minority spokesman on Health and MP for Juaboso, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, asked the government to immediately supply what the doctors need to enable them work effectively.

“We were shocked to hear yesterday that some medical doctors at Korle Bu are threatening stroke actions.

“I believe that at this point in time in this crisis, the least that we want to hear as Ghanaians is that any health professional is threatening strike action.

“We have taken time to read through some of their concerns and we think they have legitimate concerns that we think the government, as a matter of urgency, must respond to because apart from God, they are our saviors now.

“Some of the issues they raise were about inadequate PPE in the system.”

Source: ClassFMonline.com