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For now – the Ghana Medical Association [GMA] are being brave, taking risks because perhaps nothing can substitute their experience.

They [striking doctors] were ordered by the Ministry of Health to return to work by Thursday August 20, 2015 or forfeit their salaries for the period of their strike.

The inviolable ultimatum by government seems to have hit the rocks as doctors are still “enjoying” their nationwide strike.

NEAT FM’s senior reporter, Agya Kwabena reports from the country’s biggest medical institution, Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital that the health facility is still without doctors.

Speaking on NEAT FM morning show "Ghana Montie", Agya Kwabena told host Kwasi Aboagye that the Out Patient Department [OPD] of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital has since been closed down – “there is no one here and today is their dead line to return to work”.

“The maternity OPD, the Emergency and Accident OPD are all closed. The place is totally empty. But there are some nurses around,” he added. 

Also, Peace FM’s Sampson K. Nyamekye gave a similar account from the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ashanti Region.

“Activities here are very slow, doctors are still not at post despite government ultimatum,” he said. 

However, the General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association, Dr. Frank Serebuor has revealed that the members of the GMA are not afraid to lose their salaries over the period of the strike.

He was emphatic that – until government amicably negotiate with them on their conditions of service, they are not returning to work.

“As for the salaries, we the doctors have stated very clearly we are not afraid of non-payment of salaries and we can even go for a year without them, and so nobody should think that we are afraid, we are resolute on that matter,” he said in an interview with Citi FM.