By George Y. Sharpe gy.sharpe@yahoo.com
Health authorities and other Liberian government officials are making frantic efforts to persuade the country’s medical doctors not to carry out a strike action they have threatened to stage.
Amid the huge challenge faced by the health sector in Liberia, the Liberia Medical and Dental Association (LMDA) over the weekend threatened to stage a go-slow action across the country beginning this week.
Dr. Jonathan Minagogo Hart, the Secretary General of the Association said their action comes in the wake of government’s failure to settle the arrears and improve the working conditions of over one hundred doctors.
Dr. Hart also said the government has also failed to pay some forty interns who recently graduated their incentives for three months. He claimed that the interns have been working assiduously to save lives since they left the medical school.
He said beginning Monday, doctors across Liberia will only attend to emergency cases, and if nothing is done to address their concerns, as of July 1, 2018, no doctor will go to work.
But on Monday, Health Minister Dr. Willimena Jallah, Finance Minister Samuel Tweah and other officials met with the leadership of the LMDA at the Health Ministry, a meeting the Finance Minister told the state Radio that reached some consensus.
Minister Tweah said doctors whose names were removed from the payroll as alleged ghost names in recent audit were being put back on the payroll.
The LMDA gave the government of Liberia a seventy-two hour ultimatum between Thursday and Sunday last week to pay incentives and salaries owed Doctors and interns across the country.
Speaking at the LMDA JFK office at the weekend, Dr. Hart said the association reached the resolution to go slow after engagements with legislative and executive branches of government to resolve the problem fell on deaf ears.
He said it was disgusting and annoying to note that while the association was appealing with doctors to work under these unfavorable conditions, the government labelled a significant number of doctors as “ghost” and deleted their names from the payroll.
The group also wants the government to reinstate those doctors pay all benefits due health workers across the country on or before May 30, 2018.
He called on Liberians and other residents of the country to begin to prepare themselves for the consequences that would follow if their plight is not adhered to to the fullest by July 1, 20018, as no doctor will go to work.
“We are aware that these periods are going to be difficult times for the people of Liberia but, the power to prevent such situation from occurring lies in the hands of the Executive and Legislature. Therefore, hold them responsible for whatever happens hereafter.” Dr. Hart told a news conference on Friday, May 11, 2018.
The group also wants the government to improve facilities for doctors working in all parts of the country.
“Most of us [doctors] leave our homes in the morning and use public transport, or walk to go to work because we are not ministers or directors. This is unfair to a group of professional folks who have committed their lives to saving the lives of the very ministers and directors.” Dr. Hart lamented.
For his part, the Communication Director for the Ministry of Health pleaded with the doctors to abort the strike action and remain patient as the Ministry strives to address their concerns.
Mr. Sorbor George said efforts are being made with relevant stakeholders to address the plights of the LMDA.
He said the Ministry of Health has submitted the listing of affected doctors to the ministry of Finance to address their payment issue.
“We told them that we will make all frantic effort to address their problems. Doing the IAA audit, some of them were recorded as interim doctors, so the ministry is going to upgrade their status from interim doctors to licensed doctors, meaning there would be improvements in their salaries.” Mr. George said.
He said as of the end of May 2018, some of the aggrieved doctors will get improved salaries as the ministry works to address other issues raised by them.
“On Thursday [last week] we sent the payroll to the Ministry of Finance and the process is on to get the salary issue with all of them, the doctors, the interns settled. So we can only appeal to them to rescind their strike and be patient.” Mr. George disclosed.
Mr. George also added that the ministry is varying the listing of doctors who were classified as ghost for immediate reinstatement on the payroll.
The repercussion of strike by doctors in Liberia is expected to dismal if nothing is done to address their plights, given the country fragile health system.
With three hundred fifty-eight medical doctors working in Liberia, the doctor patient ratio is put at 1:1500 (one doctor to fifteen thousand patients) according to the Liberia Medical and Dental Association.
It is, in fact, seventy percent of the three hundred fifty-eight doctors that are Liberians, and only two hundred of those Liberian doctors are involved with clinical services while the others are involved with public health services with private institutions, according to Dr. Louise Kpoto, Chairperson of the LMDA.