In solidarity with doctors at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in the Ashanti Region, the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has warned that it will go on a nationwide strike if its issues are not addressed.
Doctors of KATH are facing eviction from their bungalows because the land has been sold to a private estate developer.
Dr. Frank Serebuor, president of the GMA, cautioned the Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, to change his approach.
“If he pushes us to the wall, we will decide to go on a nationwide strike in solidarity with our colleagues at KATH. We are getting there, and he should stop making such comments”, Dr Serebuor warned in an interview with Abusua FM on Wednesday, March 13.
The physicians’ official residences are in jeopardy. Afterward, private developers will be permitted to use the sites now used by medical professionals to create higher-occupancy buildings.
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Consequently, the medical professionals said they would take a break from their duties on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, to look for housing.
However, Simon Osei Mensah, the regional minister of Ashanti, has denied the physicians’ claims.
His emphasis was on the fact that plans were afoot with the private developer to pay the rent for the impacted doctors for two years.
However, according to GMA, it was the wrong approach.
According to Dr. Serebuor, the private developer should have dealt with KATH’s administration rather than the physicians.
The private developer was not obligated to hire the residents selected by Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.
“They should have rather dealt with the management of KATH to write to the doctors and medical staff,” said he.
“It wasn’t easy relocating from a place of accommodation where some have occupied for 30 years and over,” Dr. Serebuor said.
It will not be easy for them to locate new schools for their children, either. He said a complete expulsion cannot be decreed in such a manner.
Additionally, he said that some physicians have contacted the organization to express their dissatisfaction with the stress and frustration they have experienced.
He said that private developers had threatened the physicians with water and power cuts if they didn’t evacuate, and they stayed.
