The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has served notice to the government that in future negotiations, they will advocate for doctors and other health professionals’ salaries to be pegged to the US dollar.
Speaking at the 64th Annual General Conference of the Association at Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region, the President of the GMA, Dr. Frank Serebour said the motive behind the notice is to help health professionals cope with current economic hardship in the country as the cost of living shoots up.
“Let me send this signal ahead of time. GMA will strongly be pushing for salaries of doctors and other health professionals to be pegged against the dollar in our future negotiations if that is the only way to maintain our salaries.”
According to Dr. Serebour, due to the prevailing economic difficulties in the country, doctors expect automatic adjustments of their allowances.
According to him, the doctors will soon not be able to fuel their vehicles to respond to on-call duties due to high cost involved. For this reason, he also called on the government to “adjust fuel allowance without delay to reflect ex-pump prices come December 2022.”
Dr. Serebour added that government should also introduce a tax waiver on health workers’ vehicles.
“I am mindful of the fact that vehicles are being assembled in the country at the moment. However, the cost of these vehicles are such that salaries and conditions of services of health workers make it impossible for us to purchase same.”
He urged the government to also open discussions on negotiation of base pay.