The doctors at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital have temporarily postponed their planned service termination due to 13-month salary arrears.
The group had previously threatened to withdraw services to the hospital’s Outpatient Department as well as elective surgeries and procedures from February 6 to February 10, 2023 if management did not provide a clear timeline for payment of the arrears.
It warned that emergencies would be refused till all in-patients are discharged if nothing was heard from management from February 13.
However, the Chairman of the Korle-Bu Doctors Association, Dr. Frank Owusu-Sekyere in an interview with Citi News stated that the withdrawal of services which was to begin today, February 6 has been suspended following an agreed timeline with management for the payment of the salary arrears.
“Management came out with a letter spelling out the timelines they think they can pay the rest of the arrears. So we just had a meeting as an association, and we have agreed to the timelines management has given praying that they will stick to their side of the bargain, so there is no threat to it before it is paid. So come the end of March, 25 percent of the arrears will be paid and then by end of June, another 25 percent will be paid”, he said.
In a previous protest letter, the doctors accused management of discrimination in the payment of arrears of the 13th-month salary for doctors working at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
The doctors also claimed that their communication to management not to pay the 25% arrears until there was a clear agreement on the timelines for the remaining arrears was ignored.
They also stated that the payment of arrears appears to have been delegated to the departments rather than being paid from a central pool.
According to the doctors, decentralizing payment would disadvantage doctors working in financially challenged departments.
