The president of the Ghana Medical Association Dr. Frank Serebuor has warned that doctors will not hesitate to declare a nationwide solidarity strike if the Ashanti Regional Minister continues to run roughshod with aggrieved doctors of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.
Faced with eviction from their official homes, the doctors have threatened to lay down their tools on Wednesday to go scouting for residential accommodation to rent.
The Ashanti Regional Minister Simon Osei Mensah contends the doctors have no case insisting there are enough arrangements with the private developer to provide funds to settle two years rent payments for each affected doctor.
Over a two-year duration, private estate developers are expected to construct buildings with higher occupancy spaces at the present locations occupied by individual doctors and medical staff.
Speaking to Kojo Marfo on Abusua FM, the GMA President expressed disgust at the posturing of the Ashanti Regional Minister whose comments he described as exacerbating the already disturbing situation.
“The Ashanti Regional Minister is daring the doctors to provide proof of any eviction letters when he knows that some of the communication came to some of the staff without any documentation.
“In any case, the private developer did not have to engage the doctors who were allocated the residencies by Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital. They should have rather dealt with KATH for management of the hospital to rather write to the doctors and medical staff.”
“If he pushes us to the wall, we will take a decision to go on a nationwide strike in solidarity with our colleagues at KATH. We are getting here and he should stop making such comments,” he warned.
Empathizing with the doctors at KATH, Dr Frank Serebuor indicated it wasn’t easy relocating from a place of accommodation some have occupied for thirty years and over.
“Even finding new schools for their children is not going to be a stroll in the park. You can’t order a whole eviction just like that,” he averred.
Dr Serebuor recounted several doctors who had called the mother association describing how they had been subjected to stress and frustration after receiving threats of having their water and electricity cut off by the private developers if they failed to leave their homes.
Starrfm.com.gh however gathers that the Chief Executive of the Hospital Prof. Dr. Dr. Otchere Addai Mensah is in close-door meetings with the disgruntled doctor to avoid the strike action which could deal a big blow to the tertiary referral facility.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Ivan Heathcote – Fumador
