<<Print>>The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has appealed to the striking health workers to consider “the plight of the poor and afflicted” in the country and return to work. “We want to take this opportunity, to appeal to all the various health workers and professionals in the country to exercise maximum restraint and consider the plight of the poor and afflicted and continue to work even during this difficult period,” General Secretary of the NPP, Kwabena Agyepong said during a press conference in Accra.
He further called on government to expedite action on resolving the issues of the aggrieved health workers. Medical doctors, pharmacists and psychiatric nurses in the country laid down their tools to demand better conditions of service. Various interventions by government to have them rescind their decision have failed.
The aggrieved health workers insist that they will only return to work when their demands are met. Government to blame Kwabena Agyapong further blamed the Mahama led administration for the numerous industrial actions on the labour front. “The blame for the current spate of industrial strikes lies squarely with the government and not the workers. The government has proven to be very insensitive to the plight of workers and shown bad faith in negotiating with workers. This latest example of leadership paralysis plaguing this country has been made manifest in the strike actions being embarked on by almost every aspect of the public health sector.” He added that “the public health sector is one of the most important pillars of our national development.
Clearly the unprofessional manner in which government appointees and surrogates are handling this sensitive issue leaves much to be desired. Their penchants to ruin insults and ruin innuendos only serve to heighten tensions.” Constructive dialogue under NPP He boasted that during the tenure of the NPP administration, President John Kufuor engaged in “constructive dialogue with diplomacy and tact with public workers.” Mr. Agyepong “the NPP respected the value and productivity of all workers and as such we were able to stern the brain drain in the health sector. This was only achieved after gradually enhancing the conditions of service of the health workers.
Things are really in disarray.”