After four months of negotiations, government has completed conditions of service with doctors following a crippling strike in June which lasted for more than three weeks.
Doctors working in public hospitals across the country will from January next year enjoy their first ever documented conditions of service since the Ghana Health Service was formed in 1996.
Government and the Ghana Medical Association have refused to reveal the content of the signed document which was signed yesterday.
Government had said it was keen to clinch a deal with the doctors and make history as the political administration that handed doctors a codified set of conditions of service.
The document is expected to properly spell out both financial and non-financial components of their engagement, as well as improve service delivery.
The GMA embarked on a strike which saw doctors abandon hospitals for over three-weeks. They first withdrew services to Out-Patient Department followed by a withdrawal of emergency services.
They also threatened to resign en masse.
Except for a two-week mortuary fees scrapped off for a dead doctor, they claim there are no codified conditions of service. Even when their spouses or children get sick they are made to pay for the expenses involved in taking care of them, they claimed.
They therefore demanded conditions of service and proposed, among other things a 40% increase in their basic salary as accommodation allowance as well as 100, 90 and 80 gallons of fuel per month for the different levels of the profession.
They also requested 50% of basic salary per month as professional allowance, a 30% of their basic salary every month as clothing allowance.
Some government officials described the demands as outrageous. President Mahama also vowed not to authorise payments outside the budget.
Two of Ghana's ex-presidents- Jerry Rawlings and John Kufuor- as well as the Asantehene all intervened and asked the doctors to return to work.
The doctors resumed work after repeated assurances from government that codified conditions of service will be signed in no time.
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