This may sound as a bizarre warning, but please don’t fall sick or else you will die! This is because the taxpayer-sponsored, highly-respected and most-pampered medical doctors are not ready to treat you. They are using your life as a weapon in a battle for more money under the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS). The doctors under the command of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) have again, declared a nationwide strike since Friday, which from the look of things is very unpopular even with their counterparts, the Ghana Registered Nurses Association (GRNA) and the topnotch Labour Consultant, Austin Gamey. While Alice Asare-Allotey, GRNA President, has accused the medical doctors of wanting to have everything to themselves, Austin Gamey is insisting that doctors are showing gross disrespect to laid down rules and the taxpayer by embarking on a nationwide strike. Mr. Gamey, was emphatic on an Accra-based CitiFM that the doctors are “being unfair” to the entire country because there are unambiguous laws outlining how they can address their grievances. In most of the country’s hospitals, including premier one, the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital the doctors have hanged their iconic white coat and dropped their stethoscopes as well, and subsequently left the wards. Checks conducted by The Herald at the Upper West Regional Hospital in Wa, there were only five medical doctors, including a Cuban doctor, who were busily working and saving lives. In a statement issued last Friday by the President and the Deputy General Secretary of GMA, Dr. Emmanuel Adom Winful and Dr. Frank Serebour respectively, the association said it has “instructed all doctors to stop work and hold themselves in readiness for further instructions.” The GMA is unhappy with what it claims to be distortions in the grading structures of the Single Spine Pay Structure, and a so-called ambiguous stance of the Single Spine Salary Secretariat on the positions of District Directors of Health Service and Medical Superintendents. It said that: “Looking at the stand of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, it appears unlikely that any attempt is being made to address our concerns, and “in the light of this, the National Executive Council of the Ghana Medical Association has decided that the road map as stated in the press statement issued in Tamale on the 24th of September, 2011 should come into effect”. “Our noble doctors are being unfair to us,” Gamey stated. “Clearly they do not have to embark on any type of strike under any circumstances, not only because they are a very important body, but they are also an essential service of Ghana.” “The law prohibits them from engaging in strikes of this nature and that is the reason why they have been given special dispensation under the law for their matters to be judiciously handled within 72 hours when they feel dissatisfied,” the former Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Welfare said. Gamey described the doctors’ action as a “slap in the face” because they are abusing the rules that require them to resort to the National Labour Commission anytime they feel dissatisfied with negotiations at the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission. “The law forbids both the employer and them from engaging in an untoward strike during the process of negotiations. So if they do it they are abusing and slapping everybody with the left hand. They shouldn’t do it because they are noble people. “You don’t have any business to attempt to threaten anybody, attempt to intimidate anybody during the process of the negotiation… so it is completely unfair and unacceptable to those of us who contribute to pay the salaries of these employees to be slapped this way,” Gamey added. Meanwhile the National Labour Commission (NLC) has directed the doctors to suspend the strike action, and indicated its readiness to resolve the dispute between Fair Wages Commission and the GMA by compulsory arbitration as provided for under Section 162 of the Labour Act. A statement issued in Accra on Friday, by Mr. Mohammed Affum, Public Affairs Officer of NLC said: “In view of the fact that the dispute relates to parties in the health sector, which is essential service, the Labour Commission has decided that the dispute shall be resolved by compulsory arbitration as provided for under Section 162 of the Labour Act”. The Commission has also directed all parties to stay any action or intended action in furtherance of their positions, as it sets the process in motion for a settlement of the dispute. The statement said on Friday the FWSC informed the Commission that the negotiations had reached a deadlock and therefore, referred the dispute to the NLC for resolution.