GHOSPA declares strike

Crisis in the health sector as the Government and Hospitals Pharmacists Association, GHOSPA has declared a partial strike across the country.

The association after a meeting on August 3, 2015 decided to withdraw services at the Out Patient Department at government hospitals.

Like the Ghana Medical association the pharmacist are currently attending to only impatient and emergency situations

“The pharmacists have had a long haul, over four years talking about their single spine salary." Chairman of GHOSPA, Stephen told Pulse.com.gh. "Their salaries even before they migrated were far higher than when than on the single spine. It reduced their pension and the general morale of the pharmacist was very low." He added.

Since the migration of the pharmacists onto the single spine salary structure, issues on the grading structure are yet to be determined.

There are 600 hundred pharmacists in total manning the pharmacies of government hospitals across the country.

Last year a roadmap was agreed on between a cabinet subcommittee and GHOSPA to help resolve the issues. But till date the Finance Ministry is yet to implement the road map.

There have since been series of meetings between the National Labour commission and GHOSPA to resolve the issue but to no avail.

The Chief of Staff, Julius Debra then intervened to prevent the pharmacist from striking. But a meeting between the two parties resulted in a partial strike by the pharmacist instead of a fully fledged strike.

“Last year, the Old chief of staff gave a roadmap for implementation that was not followed. So when this chief of staff said we should give him one week to follow up we said well members are very uncomfortable with what the government is doing.“ Said Mr. Corqauye.