Some visiting patients at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) have impressed on the government to find a solution to the current impasse that has seen medical laboratory scientists abandoning their posts at Ghana’s second-largest health referral facility.
The Hospital’s Laboratory Services Directorate (LSD) has been closed as the medical laboratory scientists officially commenced a full-scale industrial action on Thursday, May 27, 2021.
They have been on a sit-down strike barely a week now, and the latest development, according to them, was to reinforce their stance.
Mr. Ernest Badu-Boateng, the KATH Chapter Chairman of the Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS), in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Kumasi, said their decision to abandon their posts emanated from the authorities’ reluctance to address their concerns.
“Our demand is simple. We want the management of KATH to rescind their decision of posting two medical officers to the LSD as Clinical Hematologists,” he affirmed.
A number of patients visiting the KATH on Thursday, in an interview with the GNA, poured out their frustration as those in need of laboratory services had to do so from private laboratories.
They were disturbed by the government’s delay in resolving the issue one clear week after the medical laboratory scientists laid down their tools.
Nana Akua Aboagye, a patient, said it was important that the authorities and all the parties involved in the deadlock softened their stance for peace to prevail.
The Ministry of Health (MoH), meanwhile, has appealed to the striking medical laboratory scientists to return to work while negotiations are held to address their grievances.
In a related development, the national leadership of the GAMLS is backing the actions of their colleagues at KATH, saying, the authorities ought to withdraw the two posted medical officers before negotiations could be held.
The failure to this, they said, would result in a nationwide strike by members of the Association.
They argued that the medical laboratory scientists were capable of performing their own duties without the presence of the medical officers.
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