GIVE US A BREAK (31ST MARCH, 2009)

THE public accords health workers special recognition because of the important role they play in saving human lives and safeguarding the health of the people.
Consequently, health workers are better paid. In addition, patients and their relations are prepared to reciprocate this gesture in cash or in kind.
Following agitation for better conditions of service for health professionals in the country, the government responded by appointing consultants to examine the remuneration of those professionals, particularly doctors.
The consultants acknowledged the importance of health professionals by recommending attractive packages for them, a move that has placed health workers above their counterparts anywhere on the continent.
However, it appears that our health professionals are still dissatisfied with their conditions of service.
At its National Executive Meeting held at the weekend, the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) called on the Ministry of Health to expedite action on the salary negotiations of health workers to avert any possible unrest in the health sector.
We know that the government is studying the single spine salary structure (SSSS) to enable it to put the framework in place for its implementation. On other fronts, the National Tripartite Committee has been meeting to redefine the minimum wage to take into account present national and global realities.
It is instructive that the GMA is not in principle against the SSSS, except that it wants “placement on this structure to be based on a comprehensive job evaluation study which, luckily, has been done by consultants appointed by the government”.
But for our recognition of the role of health professionals in our health delivery system and by extension our national development agenda, our riposte to the latest agitation from the doctors would have been, “Give us a break.” Lest we are mistaken, let us make it clear that we recognise the need for all workers to be decently rewarded for their labour.
For some years now, health professionals have held society to ransom by embarking on industrial actions during which many people have lost their lives.
Certain actions taken by health workers in the past, especially when they had turned their backs to their consulting rooms and wards, were inimical to the needs of society and against their Hippocratic Oath.
The DAILY GRAPHIC appreciates the sacrifices made by majority of our health workers, some of them practising in the remotest parts of the country. Nonetheless, we think that society has also made sacrifices to enable them to undergo long training at our medical schools and, in some cases, abroad.
We concede that our health professionals work under very trying conditions, but they also have some privileges that are peculiar to their profession.
The huge investment in the health sector can be mutually beneficial if our health workers regard responsibility to their patients as paramount and desist from hanging their stethoscopes in defiance of their own code, which defines the standards for acceptable behaviour for all health workers.
This time round, Ghanaians ask our health workers to spare them the agony of deserted health facilities and follow the necessary grievance procedures to seek redress for their concerns.