People seeking medical care are increasingly drifting to alternative medical practitioners for attention as medical doctors continue with their industrial action.Members of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) have been on strike for the past four weeks over unpaid allowances and other welfare issues.The situation has crippled activities in government health facilities, forcing patients to turn to private and missionary health centers to access healthcare.Luv News checks also indicate patients are trooping to herbal and alternative medical centres to access treatment.One of such patients is Madam Janet Nair, a 55 year old trader who lives in the Aboabo suburb of Kumasi. She had been seeking medical care at the Manhyia Government Hospital and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.Prior to the current strike by the doctors, she was in the process of receiving treatment for her waist pain at the Komfo Anokye Hospital. In her frustration to get care, she resorted to an alternative health center and now she says there is an improvement in her condition.Madam Janet is among several patients who frequent MY Ventures, an alternative natural healthcare center in Kumasi.According to Dr. Caesar, Chief Executive of MY Ventures, there has been an increase in number of patients within the period of the strike, though he attributes this partly to new investments in his operations.“We have added some equipment to our work prior to the doctors’ strike so we don’t actually know whether it is as a result of the strike or the improvements in our work that give the difference”, he stated.He however admits such health facilities are limited in meeting the needs of patients, especially in surgical and other complicated ailments.Dr. Caesar has therefore describes as shameful the country’s current state of health delivery.“We should be ashamed of ourselves; this is not going to the doctors, it is collective”, he emphasized. “Whatever brought about this problem is what is making us ashamed – imagine your dear one dying just like that, not because there are no drugs or no doctors but because of a common strike”.The alternative medical practitioner has enjoined the government to be proactive in tackling issues in the medical front.