The Upper East Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Koku Awoonor-Williams, has stated that the nationwide strike declared by the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) calls for critical assessment of the modus operandi for embarking on such strikes.
He explained that the decision to go on strike or not should be left for the individual to make and "I am talking to you as a regional director of health services, as a doctor and as a person."
That, he said, did not mean doctors or health professionals should not negotiate for conditions of service.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic on the strike vis-a-vis its impact on health in the Upper East Region, the director pointed out that the region was so deprived in terms of adequate human resources in the health sector such that when strikes were declared, it made it difficult for the personnel in the region, particularly in the districts to come to terms with the situation.
Challenge
He said until recently, most of the district hospitals in the region had only one doctor.
He said Bongo, for instance, still had only one doctor serving a population of about 86,000 people, while places such as Navrongo now had three doctors, Zebilla two doctors and Sandema two doctors.
Dr Awoonor-Williams noted that in such situations, the doctors did not have "the luxury of going on strike because if you do, you are postponing the work for yourself and at Sandema, Zebilla, Bongo and other places, the patients have nowhere to go; they will still wait for you.”
He said "although some of the patients might die, you will still come back to meet the problems."
He indicated that in such deprived areas and even in the regional capital Bolgatanga "how many individuals have established private hospitals such that people who have resources could go to seek medical attention in such facilities or set up private hospitals to complement health care services being provided by the public health institutions.
"If you have only one doctor in a whole district hospital, and say OPD services should not be carried out in such places, then there is a disparity or there is no uniformity in that," he observed.
Postings
He further opined that the mere fact that some doctors have refused postings to the region "is in itself like going on strike.
"We in this part of the country have made a lot of sacrifices even though to a large extent it is not recognised but that is okay; at the end of the day whether you are a doctor or not you should be able to come to the realisation that rendering such services is not between you and the Ghana Medical Association, but it is between you and your God," he opined.
Staff
The director expressed regret that at the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital, there were 17 medical doctors out of which five were specialists and 12 were medical officers.
"Let me say that for a regional hospital such as this, which is a referral hospital, to have that small number of doctors is absolutely disgraceful," he stated.
He said the greatest challenge the region was facing was inadequate number of doctors and specialists, adding that the region suffered a major setback in 2013 when its entire Cuban doctor brigade left, leaving behind only one Cuban surgeon.
He stated that there were only three X-ray technicians serving the region with a population of about 1.2 million. "We also have challenges with having radiologists, pharmacists, biomedical scientists and other specialists," he noted.
Dr Awoonor-Williams also stated that there were 13 districts but only six of them had district health facilities, leaving a deficit of seven.
