Doctors Suspend Strike Action, GMA, FWSC And NLC To Continue With Negotiations

The National Executive Council of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has suspended their ongoing strike action and withdrawal of services to the Out-Patients Department following an emergency meeting held at the Flagstaff house on Tuesday. Doctors in the public health facilities began a partial withdrawal of their services on Monday, following delays in resolving some sticky points regarding their migration onto the SSSS. The full withdrawal of services was scheduled to begin on Monday, February 18, 2013. However, speaking in an interview on Peace FM on Wednesday, Dr. Kwabena Opoku Adusei, President of the GMA disclosed that a Memorandum of Understanding was agreed upon by the parties involved (GMA and FWSC) to abide by the ruling of the NLC to resolve the current deadlock. �We have already started working and so we will plead with the rest of our members to also go back to work for negotiations to go on. We will go by the decision that was made at yesterday�s meeting... GMA and FWSC have agreed to work together to find an amicable solution to our current situation and that is what we will go by�for now, we have resumed to our normal duties� the GMA President said. Government held a closed door meeting at the Flagstaff House on Tuesday to find an agreeable solution to the concerns being raised by the doctors. The emergency meeting was attended by representatives of government, the National Labour Commission (NLC), the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) and the Ghana Medical Association (GMA). In a statement signed by the Minister of Information and Media Relations, Mahama Ayariga, the Chief of Staff, Mr. Prosper Douglas Bani, urged all parties in labour disputes to allow the appropriate institutions of state to resolve the issue. The various parties agreed that the arbitration award given by the NLC should be implemented to resolve the current impasse.