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Negotiations between the government and the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) over conditions of service proposed by the GMA for its members lapsed into a stalemate yet again this week, and the en masse resignation of doctors serving in public hospitals threatened by the GMA now appears inevitable.

Multiple rounds of failed negotiations have characterised what now easily passes for one of the most protracted if also distasteful labour disputes in Ghana’s labour history. Distasteful because if truth be told, the strikes, even granted that they were justified, amount to no less than a use of human lives as bargaining chips in the pursuit of material goods for personal use.

The General Telegraph has been firm in its opinion that doctors deserve conditions of service that are decent, fair, just and commensurate with their training, calling and nature of service to society. We are however opposed to the strikes embarked upon by the doctors for several reasons:

To begin with, the current strike by doctors is illegal. For a strike to be legal, it must have been embarked upon according to processes which have been outlined in the Labour Act.

Where the initial processes for resolving labour disputes under the Labour Act are followed by aggrieved labour unions or associations, but a settlement of the dispute has not been reached as has happened in the case of the doctors, the aggrieved union or association is required by law, to submit its grievance to compulsory arbitration at the National Labour Commission.

That the government has so far agreed to hold negotiations with a group of professionals who are on an illegal strike, is only because of the sensitive nature of the dispute which borders on a grave threat to public access to medical care for thousands of Ghanaians across the country.

The government has no doubt been compelled to continue with negotiations because it has been moved by the plight of patients doctors have abandoned at public hospitals. The General Telegraph finds it regrettable that the government appears to have withdrawn the initial offers made to the doctors, following the doctors’ apparent insistence on official compliance with all their demands.

The General Telegraph is also opposed to the strike because, under the country’s labour laws, persons in institutions which provide essential public services are prohibited from going on strike. This prohibition covers doctors and other persons working in an area where a strike action can lead to particular or total loss of life or pose a danger to public health safety.

We have previously also pointed out that ours is a developing country with high levels of poverty and fiercely competing demands on the central government budget. Large sections of our population still lack access to some of the most basic necessities of life as a result. The point has been made by many critics of the doctors’ strike, that the doctor’s demands are far more than the nation can afford.

The General Telegraph urges the government to do all it can to reach a mutually acceptable settlement of the dispute with the doctors and the doctors to listen to the voice of conscience in relation to the rather outrageous demands they are making.