NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR HEALTH (JULY 31, 2009)

THE saying that “when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers” holds true in the ongoing impasse between the government and the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) over salary negotiations for doctors.
Negotiations between the government and doctors for salary adjustment were deadlocked following the refusal of the GMA to accept the seven per cent salary increment for 2009 proposed by the government.
Strikes by doctors and other health professionals in the past have led to avoidable deaths and aggravation of the challenges in the health sector.
It is, therefore, refreshing that the GMA and the Fair Wages Commission (FWC) have begun meetings aimed at reaching a consensus on the issues of salary increment and allowances for doctors.
Unlike in the past when negotiations between the government and the doctors dragged on, it is good news that this time around the GMA and the FWC are reported to be reaching compromises in order to arrive at a consensus on the contentious issues of salary increment and allowances.
In a communiqué adopted recently at its Fourth National Executive Council Meeting in Bolgatanga, the GMA appealed to the government to urgently implement the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between it and the Minister of Health, Dr George Sipa-Adjah Yankey, on May 26, this year, else the doctors would advise themselves.
It quoted the doctors as saying that they would not accept the proposed seven per cent increment, since public sector workers had been given a 17 per cent pay rise.
The DAILY GRAPHIC concedes that we are in very trying times when many working people find it difficult to make ends meet.
On the face value, what the government has offered the doctors is peanut, especially compared with what was given public sector workers, but we believe that it did so on account of what is available in its coffers.
Our economy is in very dire straits and the exigencies of our time require that everybody accepts to sacrifice a little, so that the country’s burden can be shared equally.
The agitation on the labour front shows that every worker or labour union is making demands based on its bargaining power. These series of agitation only stampede the government into taking ad hoc measures to meet the demands of the working class, which sometimes cannot be sustained.
Now that the labour front is boiling, the DAILY GRAPHIC reminds the FWC to speed up the processes towards the implementation of the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) in 2010.
We do not want to pretend that the implementation of the SSSS will end agitation on the labour front. However, if for nothing at all, it will address the distortions in wage relativities across professions and on the labour front because wages and salaries administration will be grounded on best practices and not by the whims of the government and employers.
The DAILY GRAPHIC, therefore, appeals to our doctors to exercise restraint in their demand for salary adjustment and their threat to lay down their tools because the government has demonstrated enough commitment to the implementation of the SSSS.
Doctors need better conditions of service in order to maintain their keep, but in all their agitation they should remember their Hippocratic Oath that enjoins them to safeguard the sanctity of life.