- The postings were indiscriminate and without recourse to normal principles often employed. For instance, colleague doctors who moved out of Accra to the district hospitals and some regional hospital on their own were reposted to other places while those posted from Accra and Kumasi to replace them did not go. Colleague doctors who were married (to their doctor colleagues) were posted to extreme opposite ends of the country and no explanation could make the authorities involved with the postings reverse these postings officially.
- The conditions of service or work in most of these districts are unattractive. For instance contrary to the political propaganda of the NPP government about the basic take home salary of doctors going beyond one thousand dollars I can tell you that it is currently not even up to seven hundred Ghana cedis. Therefore most doctors depend hugely on part time jobs or locum in private hospitals to survive. Indeed in most cases what they earn from this part time far exceeds their salaries and most of these part time jobs are unavailable in the districts. More to that if you are unlucky to be the only doctor in the district then it means you will be working every day and night of the week without rest and without any additional source of income. Why would anybody then want to leave Accra and go to these places?
- Again because of the current remuneration problems everybody i.e. doctor will want to specialize so as to move to a different salary scale, since it takes at least ten 10 years after becoming a medical officer to be promoted to another level with a commensurate increase in your salary. Now to specialize you will need to write entrance examinations and these are difficult exams which will require diligent studies. In the districts because you are alone and working all day round you can hardly make time to study for any exams and so you find that its the same people in Accra who get part time jobs with comparatively less pressures of work who end up in these specialist programmes. So why will anybody ordinarily want to move away from the city? In view of the above and as is done in even developed countries the government of Prof. Evans Atta Mills must make conscious efforts to address these imbalances in opportunities for doctors and other health workers to ensure that our brothers and sisters in the regions and districts also get quality health care which is their right. This if done will not only ensure improved health care to Ghanaians in the less endowed areas of the country but also reduce the pressures on the teaching hospitals because of frequent referrals from the periphery Thank you. Dr. Abiwu Hilarius A.K. Spokesperson, concerned junior doctors group. And former national spokesperson, Jun. Doctors Association. 0242934269 [Email: saharavm@yahoo.com]
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