Medical Association suspends strike action

Thursday November 29, 2007-page 50
Story: Musah Yahaya Jafaru
THE Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has suspended its intended strike over distortions in salary relativities and general conditions of service.
This follows an agreement reached by the leadership of the association and the government last Tuesday.
The President of the GMA, Dr Emmanuel Adom Winful, who announced this at a press conference in Accra yesterday, said the government acknowledged that there "are distortions in the relativities and that serious efforts will be made to correct them at the level of the Fair Wages Commission".
He said the government had reinstated fuel allowance, which would be paid effective November 2007.
Besides, Dr Winful said, house officers' salary would be "promptly" keyed into the Accountant-General's database for payment to affected house officers to be effected in December 2007.
According to him, subsequent meetings had been scheduled to culminate in the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the GMA and the government on December 19, 2007.
The MoU, he said, would spell out the various steps to be taken to correct the distortions in the salary relativities and the general condition of service of doctors.
Dr Winful described the agreements as satisfactory and progressive and pledged to continue to act in the "best interest" of the membership of the association and the general public.
"Stay cool and continue with your work and have faith in the leadership," he urged the doctors.
The Vice-President of the GMA, Dr Kwabena Opoku-Adusei, said the GMA was not interested in strike, since it impacted negatively on patients, doctors and the government, stressing that it would be used as a last resort.
"It is better for the government to negotiate when the situation is calm than when it becomes a crisis," he said.
The GMA, at its annual conference in Takoradi from November 6-10, 2007 drew up a road map of action to impress on the government to correct the distortions in the salary relativities and improve on the conditions of service of doctors, saying that if it failed to do that, the members would embark on a strike.