Employment and Labour Relations Minister, Haruna Iddrisu, has explained that the continuing strike by the doctors is a the reason negotiations on their conditions of service have stalled.

According to him, government may be forced to refer the standoff between it and the agitating doctors to the National Labour Commission (NLC) for redress.The NLC is charged with the facilitation and settlement of industrial disputes using dialogue.

Negotiations between government and the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) on service conditions for doctors have broken down at least two times, the sticking point being what government negotiators say are unreasonable demands by the doctors.

However, as they fail to find a common ground, citizens needing health care are left with a few options.

Major public health facilities across the country have been deserted, while private health institutions struggle to accommodate and deal with an exponential increase in patient numbers.

But according to government, the GMA is the one currently stalling the negotiation process.

“We are unable to grant some of their request and we submitted government’s full response to their request. Once we have their response we can bring finality to the matter”, the Labour Relations Minister said.

Mr Idrissu told Joy News’ Elton John Brobbey that although a draft proposal of conditions of service for doctors is in progress, a chapter on remuneration and allowable allowances for the doctors has contributed to the breakdown of talks.

“We are working on that document [and] it even makes it more compelling why they [doctors] should call off the strike action and come and we conclude and sign onto the document”, he emphasized.

The GMA members left the consulting rooms and operating theatres of public hospitals two weeks ago to protest the failure of government to give them codified and improved  conditions of service, which they say they have been demanding for many years now.

They said if by Friday, August 14, 2015 government fails to meet their demands for favourable service conditions, all 2,000 of them will resign.