Pharm. Agyemang Badu
The Government and Hospital Pharmacists Association (GHOSPA) has given government 10 days’ ultimatum (starting from yesterday) to present a roadmap to upgrading its members on the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) or intensify their strike.
According to the association, if by the end of the tenth day nothing is heard from the respective agencies, “we will begin to deploy additional measures to bring our plight to the attention of the president, the government and the good people of Ghana.”
The nine day-old strike action by GHOSPA to press home their demand for equity and fairness in public sector compensations under the Single Spine Pay Policy has already affected thousands of patients who need essential medicines at government health facilities.
Government through the Ministry of Health (MoH) in a statement directed the heads of institutions to ensure pharmacies are kept open to the public with the head of pharmacy at post as negotiations continue, but the association says it will not relent on its decision or be forced by any directive to go back to work, indicating that there has not been any negotiation since the strike began.
The NLC has also issued a directive for the association to meet with them in the issue, however, GHOSPA says it will appear before the NLC to the extent that the issues are on the stalled conditions of service negotiations.
Pharm. Agyemang Badu, GHOSPA Chairman, addressing the press, mentioned that the migration of health sector workers by the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) unto the SSSS in 2011 has made the members of GHOSPA worse off.
He indicated that the association has since followed due process in seeking redress to their wrong placement on the SSSS, but has been met with failed assurances from government agencies for the past six years.
“Over the last six years, this matter has travelled through every due process conceivable. The National Labour Commission (NLC) has made several rulings and determinations of which the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission has blatantly refused to comply with.
Not even the intervention of the Ministry of Health, the office of the Chief of Staff through a Cabinet Sub-committee with oversight responsibility over FWSC and NLC has been respected or complied with by the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission after submitting itself before the committee,” he stated.
Pharm. Badu, however, said the institutions have for some years now taken the association’s respect for due process and patience for granted, indicating that they will not relent on their decision to get what has been scientifically proven to be theirs.
“We want to assure government that having waited and endured nearly six years for a resolution of this matter, having believed in all the assurances and committees to do justice, we are determined for once to see the end of this matter,” he stressed.
Pharm. Badu said the association will not go back to work until the NLC ruling in 2013 that placed them on a starting grade point of 18h and the cabinet subcommittee recommendation of 114 interim market premium for pharmacists are implemented.
“We want to repeat that our unfortunate patients are not the target of this action. Government can, if it genuinely wants to restore the full range of pharmaceutical service, do it in no time in all facilities.
We call on our patients, clients, colleagues and superiors at work to bear with public sector pharmacists in these trying moments,” he said.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri