GMA President: Hospitals Are Not On Total Strike; Only OPD Services Are Not Working

Dr. Opoku Adusei, the President of Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has debunked reports that hospitals are working as the public sector strike has hit schools in the demand for the government to allow them to manage tier two of the pension scheme. The indefinite strike declared by a number of labor unions begun yesterday, with public sector schools being the worst affected. Although most ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) were open for official business due to the late announcement of the strike, a number of public schools were closed. According to Dr. Opoku Adusei, hospitals were working yesterday because instructions had not been sent to them on the areas which ought not to be affected by the indefinite strike due to the peculiar nature of the health service. Speaking on Okay FM�s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, the GMA boss revealed that six head groups in the public health sector had a meeting yesterday to declare indefinite strike on Outpatient Department (OPD) services. He explained that the special nature of the job will not allow them to have a total strike; thus the hospitals across the country will only attend to emergency cases, inpatients, Labor and Delivery cases. He assured though that doctors and nurses will be in post to attend to emergency cases, OPD service is affected until further strategy is adopted to handle the situation with the government. �We cannot go on total strike due to the peculiar nature of our job. We have sent a message across to our members that due to our work, OPD services will not be attended to...we will attend to inpatients, emergency cases and labor and delivery at the various hospitals. Doctors and nurses will always be at post but it does not mean that they are working fully except emergency cases. So from today, we have not said we are going on total strike but rather OPD services will not work till further notice to review our strategy,� he explained.