Patients visiting health centres in the Ashanti Region to seek healthcare are being directed to major hospitals following the ongoing strike by members of the Ghana Physician Assistants Association.
Citi News’ checks at some health centres indicate nurses are directing patients to nearby hospitals due to the absence of Physician Assistants who are manning the facilities.
Members of the Ghana Physicians Assistants Association are on strike to protest their displeasure towards a proposed legislation that will see them being supervised by a Medical Doctor.
The ongoing strike is affecting healthcare delivery at health centres located on the outskirts of the city and patients with common ailments are forced to visit major hospitals to seek medical care.
The National Labour Commission is expected to meet the parties to help resolve the issue.
Ashanti Regional Chairman of the Ghana Physician Assistants Association, Michael Kofi Agyei, says members want their concerns addressed.
“We had a meeting with the minister, but it didn’t really result in anything concrete so the National Labour Commission has also called the various parties to a meeting, so we are hoping for something tangible to come out. The meeting is on Wednesday.
“We are expecting that the demands that we have tabled out be met and some of them are the fact that if we are not medical practitioners then the Dental and Medical Council should not regulate us because they are seeking to tell us that we don’t practice medicine or dentistry.
“And we also have PAC using their certificates to credential government facilities whiles when a PA wants to move into private practice they say you don’t have that power. We don’t know what happened. We have not been paid for what happened,” he stated.
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