Striking doctors should all resign – Kofi Bentil

Source: myjoyonline.com - As the stalemate between government and striking public sector doctors persists, Vice-President of policy think tank, IMANI-Ghana, Kofi Bentil is proposing a radical solution.

He says all the doctors should resign en bloc and allow the government to rehire them under agreed conditions of service if it so desires.

He believes that is the only way to resolve the current impasse which is causing pain and loss of lives.

“I wish to humbly submit that the doctors should resign en bloc and I wish to humbly submit to government that it should accept the resignation of the doctors.

“That will reset this whole arrangement and then if the doctors now are not being employed by government, we cannot demand that they go to work, and we cannot accuse them of causing the death of people."

Kofi Bentil was speaking to Joy FM on the strike by public sector doctors which has paralysed the health system for more than two weeks now.

The doctors are demanding improved and documented conditions of service but the government insists the demands are outrageous.

Kofi Bentil believes the demands of the doctors are justified because they break their backs to save lives.

“If you look at the value of the work they do and the conditions they work under, it is absolutely justified that they should ask for what they are asking.

“This will not happen to the security services, nobody is going to argue with soldiers the way they are arguing with the doctors and there are many other aspects of the public and civil services and the political establishment which do not have these problems; so why do doctors have to go through this every year? We should really think about a reset instead of trying to solve this problem,” he said.