NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, August 10, 2015

Ghana’s health sector is destined for serious crisis this week as attempts to resolve the current strike by public health sector doctors failed to yield any positive results.

Negotiations between a government team and that of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) yesterday (Sunday) broke down with both parties walking out of the meeting as they failed to make compromises.

The President of the GMA, Dr Kwabena Opoku-Adusei, told the Daily Graphic that what transpired at the meeting was virtually a withdrawal of the counter-proposals the government submitted to the GMA.

In what appeared to be a neck-to-neck discussions with only the vex issue of doctors retiring on their salaries, sources close to both parties described the breakdown in negotiations as a big disappointment.

Dr Opoku-Adusei said what that meant was that the doctors were going ahead to follow on their road map to a mass resignation.

Sources close to the meeting said the thorny issue that remained on the negotiating table was that of doctors of a certain category retiring on their salaries.