“We, Quebec doctors who believe in a strong public system, oppose the recent salary increases negotiated by our medical federations,” the letter says.

The group say they are offended that they would receive raises when nurses and patients are struggling.

“These increases are all the more shocking because our nurses, clerks and other professionals face very difficult working conditions, while our patients live with the lack of access to required services because of the drastic cuts in recent years and the centralization of power in the Ministry of Health,” reads the letter, which was published February 25.

“The only thing that seems to be immune to the cuts is our remuneration,” the letter says.

Canada has a public health system which provides “universal coverage for medically necessary health care services provided on the basis of need, rather than the ability to pay,” the government’s website says.

The 213 general practitioners, 184 specialists, 149 resident medical doctors and 162 medical students want the money used for their raises to be returned to the system instead.

“We believe that there is a way to redistribute the resources of the Quebec health system to promote the health of the population and meet the needs of patients without pushing workers to the end,” the letter says.

“We, Quebec doctors, are asking that the salary increases granted to physicians be canceled and that the resources of the system be better distributed for the good of the health care workers and to provide health services worthy to the people of Quebec.”

A physician in Canada is paid $260,924 ($339,000 Canadian) for clinical services by the government’s Ministry of Health per year on average, according to a report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information published in September 2017. On average, a family physician is paid $211,717 ($275,000 Canadian) for clinical services and a surgical specialist is paid $354,915 ($461,000 Canadian), according to the same report.

This is total gross pay, however, and does not take into account overhead each doctor pays to operate, as the Canadian Institute for Health Information is careful to point out to CNBC Make It.

In May 2016, one physician publicly broke down the cost of running his family practice, and though he brought in $231,033 ($300,000 Canadian), he was left with $136,906 ($177,876 Canadian) after subtracting his business expenses — but before taxes and employment benefits are taken out.

The cost of medical school in Canada is subsidized by provincial governments, according to The Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada. The cost varies depending on whether a student is a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or foreign student and the particular school. For Canadian citizens or permanent residents, tuition for the first year of medical school ranges from $2567 ($3,334 Canadian) to $20,064 ($26,056 Canadian), according to The Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada’s website.

The same group, the Médecins Québécois pour le Régime Public (MQRP), that published the aforementioned public letter, also published a letter on February 17 opposing $500 million worth of pay increases for specialist doctors. The group called the pay increase “indecent.”

And on February 1, the MQRP published a letter denouncing working conditions of nurses. “The nurses are exhausted by a heavy workload. They argue that the chronic lack of staff and the fatigue caused by repeated overtime, sometimes mandatory, for lack of replacement of the team, have an impact on the safety of patient care,” the letter says.

The post Canada: Doctors protest against increment of their salaries appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

A good doctor will diagnose your health problems based on your symptoms.  They may also try to treat the cause. Unfortunately, they may only treat the symptoms.  Conversely, a good latrine artisan provides you with an incredible mechanism for preventing illness — a toilet.  However, most people under appreciate the role latrine artisans must play in transforming the liquid sanitation challenge; that is, we fail to realize that a critical mass of latrine artisans are a necessary factor in ensuring that everyone in Ghana has access to a safe toilet.  Consequently, the state of the nation’s toilets is abysmal.

Yet, access to safe toilets for everyone is critical for public health.  This is true for urban as well as rural areas.  People living in urban areas sometimes receive support. Think, for example, of the GAMA project, funded by the World Bank.  There is a bias, however, against rural dwellers. They are usually expected to construct their own toilets without any support.  Generally, there are no enforced standards as to what constitutes a safe toilet in the rural context.  Concomitantly, we largely fail to recognize toilet/latrine construction as a skill.

This is a bit of a paradox.  On the one hand, we want to scale up household toilet ownership and we know one challenge across much of the rural countryside is the collapsing of toilets, especially during the rainy season.  On the other hand, we do not take seriously feedback from rural communities that one of the biggest challenge they have in constructing and using toilets is that they do not know how to build sustainable ones that can last. In my experience, the second most common reason given by communities to explain why they do not have a household toilet is that they lack the technical knowledge in building one. To dismiss this as an excuse is too facile. It also begs us to ask, what is the role of the local government authorities?

In engagements with district assemblies regarding water, sanitation, and hygiene I often ask, “How many communities do you intend to facilitate to become open defecation free”?  I also ask, “How many latrine artisans do you have in the district”?   Then I ask, how many latrine artisans you have trained during the last two years”?  More often than not, the response to the last question is none – no one has been trained.   In a few cases, I learn that an NGO or another entity has supported the training of some latrine artisans.  Then I usually ask another question, “If miraculously, everyone in your district who does not have a latrine decided they wanted one in the next month—how many people do you have who can build them to last”?  If we are going to ensure that everyone has access to safe sanitation by 2025, we need a critical mass of good latrine artisans.

For the purpose of analysis, let us assume that the average district has a population of 100,000 persons. Assuming that the average household size is five (5) per family, then that district should have approximately 60,000 household toilets.  Average sanitation coverage in the region with the lowest coverage is currently about 30%.   However, let us be generous and assume a 40% sanitation coverage. So let us imagine that this district now has 8,000 household toilets.  This means that 12,000 households still require toilets/latrines.  Now let us assume that the district has 100 latrine artisans.  (If there is a district that has more than 100 artisans please identify yourself).  For a simple analysis, this means that each latrine artisan will have to construct 120 latrines. Now let us assume it takes a trained latrine artisan 5 working days to complete the construction of a toilet.  This means that it will take 600 days for the total number of latrines to be constructed.

However, this assumes that artisans are working exclusively in this capacity and doing so 365 days a year.  However, in many rural contexts we can anticipate that artisans as well as the general community will be busy farming for at least half of the year, so expectations of construction during this time is largely misplaced.  Therefore, let us assume that we only have ½ a year for toilet construction.

This means that it will take the imaginary district above three years and four months to build the 12,000 toilets, so that everyone has access to a safe toilet. This is a best-case scenario. This figure does not account for the issue of actual demand for toilets or population growth during that time.  In other words, in a perfect world where every household in our district wanted to own and use a toilet, it would take 100 artisan3 ¼ years to provide them.

Latrine artisans are a critical and necessary component of the multifaceted solutions necessary to transform rural sanitation. To be clear, this is not to suggest that more latrine artisans alone can bring lasting change.  There are many other factors to be considered. There are many assumptions here. For instance, in the above scenario we assume that everyone household wants to own and use a household latrine and they are able and willing to allocate resources to construct one.  Yet, we know that for those living with low-incomes, in a context of growing inequality nationally, access to the resources to construct a sustainable toilet is a luxury for many.  It should not come as a surprise that the areas with the highest rates of poverty depth and severity, as well as high levels of inequality, are also the areas with the highest levels of open defecation.  We may assume that if you, the reader, had to choose between using your limited financial resources to pay school fees or to build a toilet, it is possible you could be found in the bushes or on a beach squatting.  In other words, income inequalities and therefore limited incomes are also a limiting factor in efforts to scale-up household sanitation ownership and use.

For everyone in Ghana to have access to safe sanitation, we have to ensure that all those who want to own and use a toilet can get it as soon as possible.  In other words, supply must be ready to satisfy demand.  There is also a need to discuss demand creation, which I will address in a subsequent article. However, now, I want to focus on supply.

For the rights of everyone to safe toilets to be realized, the state as the primary duty bearer must create and enabling environment for supply.  The starting point of supply are latrine artisans.  However, many districts do not know many latrine artisans they have at present.  Many districts do not budget for the training of latrine artisans and they do not ensure that it takes place.  As a result, a most critical element of supply remains underdeveloped.  For this to change, the state has to play the leading role in creating a critical mass of trained and engaged latrine artisans.

At this historical moment when the state of the nation’s toilets is abysmal, a good latrine artisan is more important than a good doctor.  A good latrine artisan provides you with a toilet; with proper and consistent use of the toilet along with appropriate hand and food hygiene you can prevent most faecal oral diseases. An ounce of prevention is still worth more than a pound of cure.  The nation needs more than a million toilets.  Therefore, Ghana needs skilled and committed latrine artisans in the thousands. Ghana needs them now.

–

Author: Chaka Uzondu (Ph.D), Policy Manager, WaterAid

The post Latrine artisans more important than doctors now [Article] appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The 10 doctors, including three from Cuba, offer services to a population of about 2.6 million people in the Region, and takes referral cases from facilities within the area and some parts of the Northern Region.

Dr. Atobrah disclosed this at the opening ceremony of the Hospital’s two-day Performance Review for 2017, which is an avenue for staff to share experiences and chart the way forward.

[contextly_sidebar id=”4q58y1UTErbyspVSpxcDav1Qcbo1Il09″]He said the period under review had not been easy, adding “In the past few years, we have lost two surgeons who had to upgrade their skills at the Ghana College of Surgeons. We also lost our gynaecologist to another institution, so virtually our level of human resource has been going down.”

Dr. Atobrah said the Pharmacy Department was under-staffed causing congestion as clients had to wait for long to be served, and that compelled the Hospital to use part of its internally generated revenue to engage more professional hands to assist.

He said the initiative had reduced the finances of the Hospital, adding; “Our finances have been very much hit by these expenditures outside the direct expenditure for the patients”.

Mr. Joshua Abanga, the Deputy Director of Nursing Services, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, urged nurses, especially Community Health Nurses, to follow-up on health cases such as Tuberculosis (TB) and the Human Immune Virus (HIV) in the various communities instead of waiting for the patients to come to them.

“We have been given a target of about 2.7 million out of the population to screen for HIV and send for treatment. If we want to sit down in our comfort zones and wait for the people to come, we can never meet our target of 90-90-90 by the year 2020, we have to go to the people,” he said.

Mr. Abanga called on all health facilities in the country to intensify screening exercises at their various entry points.

“We need to do a lot of screening for both TB and HIV. On the part of TB clients, we have to direct them to the laboratory. We should not just screen them, detect the cases and allow them to go home, we will not be meeting our target of 90-90-90 for HIV if we want to go this way,” he said.

He advised the nurses to be of good behaviour to patients, adding that measures were being put in place to discipline nurses who disrespect clients at the facility.

–

Source: GNA

The post U/E Regional Hospital to lose five doctors appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Some 206 trained junior doctors have spent almost seven months at home without being posted over delays in financial clearance by the Ministry of Finance.

[contextly_sidebar id=”ybhyjOUmzVgTD2XJbjDqxRua2ytVQYyV”]The doctors had renewed calls to the government to urgently resolve the perennial issues that surround their absorption into the public health system.

The Ghana Medical Association also criticized government over their failure to resolve the matter.

A Deputy Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, in a Citi News interview, noted that “on January 10, we gave financial clearance for the first batch of 194 medical officers and they are going to start work from the first of March 2018. Their appointment cannot be earlier than March 1, 2018.”

The second batch of 347 health personnel was given clearance on January 17.

“Junior Doctors were about 150. About 6 midwives, 102 physician assistants, 42 field technicians, some optical technicians, technical officers and senior trainees. We also included financial clearance for about 30 healthcare professionals to go to the mental authority,” Mr. Oppong Nkrumah outlined.

The Information Minister added that “there will be a bit more [personnel cleared] as we go along.”

245 jobless doctors get financial clearance after Citi FM’s ‘intervention’

In 2017, following Citi FM’s intervention, the Ministry of Finance cleared some 245 doctors after six months of being unemployed.

The commitment of the government to absorbing these doctors, and healthcare in general, was questioned when one of the doctors wrote to Citi FM conveying the frustration of the jobless doctors who appear ready to serve the country.

Other health officials have in the past few months protested at the Ministry of Health to either be posted to health facilities or get financial clearance from the Ministry of Finance.

–

Caleb Kudah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Gov’t clears 541 health professionals for posting appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to the Ministry, it is in talks with the Finance Ministry to release funds for the doctor’s clearance and posting.

[contextly_sidebar id=”dBbBhDPxbREIDi6W65DiXoqalbJhMRar”]Speaking to Citi News, the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Health, Robert Cudjoe, explained that “the policy of the government is that, they want the backlog to be cleared so that going forward, when our brothers and sisters complete their national service, they will be posted.”

Mr. Cudjoe added that, although the concerns of the unemployed doctors are legitimate, it is unfair to accuse the government of being inconsiderate to their plight.

“We are aware of the fact that there are still a few pending clearances that we are waiting to be given by finance, so for our brothers and sisters not to go through the normal process by getting closer and getting to know exactly what we are doing and all of a sudden going on air, I think it is not the best.”

Some doctors who are without work renewed calls to the government to urgently resolve the perennial issues that surround their absorption into the public health system.

The doctors, who completed their housemanship in 2017, have since not been absorbed by the Ghana Health Service, and according to them, this is largely due to the failure by the Ministry of Finance to grant them clearance.

Junior doctors seeking greener pastures

Amidst these problems, disillusioned junior doctors are seeking external opportunities because of the tedious processes within Ghana’s health sector.

The number of Ghanaian doctors in New York are reported to be almost equal or more than doctors in Ghana put together in Ghana.

According to the General Secretary of the Junior Doctors Association, Mawuena Hafeh, who disclosed this, he is also seeking for opportunities overseas.

“A lot of people are seeking opportunities outside the government sector because it seems like these days, it is quite difficult to work for the government. We seem to be practically begging all the time for the government to give financial clearance to begin working.”

“So there are opportunities out there which quite a number of doctors are now exploiting these days and these are not limited to travelling outside to work in other countries,” Dr. Hafeh said.

–

By: Naa Kwarmah Siaw Marfo & Caleb Kudah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Be patient, you’ll be posted soon – MoH to junior doctors appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to the Association, government’s refusal to post qualified doctors and dentists across the country is taking a toll on Ghana’s health care delivery system.

[contextly_sidebar id=”gh7qNuhFLV9mKagR1nUkLu0Otpyf8fEZ”]Speaking at the 59th Annual General Conference of the (GMA) in Kumasi, the President of the GMA, DCOP Dr. E. Ewusi-Emmim, called on the Ministry of Health to address the issue of unemployment among health workers, since it is affecting health delivery in the country.

“The GMA is gravely concerned about the creeping incidence of unemployment for medical doctors and dentists in the country. Ghana still suffers from abysmal doctor to patient ratio. Several communities and districts in the country do not have medical doctors and dentists to serve them at all, while strained manpower languishes at home.”

“Such facilities continue to be manned by single individuals who tend to be overworked and in most cases cannot even take their annual leave. It is worrying that newly qualified medical doctors and dentists as well as those who have completed their house jobs are in some cases unemployed, wasting away to the detriment of health care delivery in the country.”

Frustrated jobless Doctor writes to Citi FM, cries over neglect

His comments come weeks after some 245 trained, but unemployed doctors questioned the efforts of the Health and Finance Ministries in absorbing them into the public service.

The doctors, who graduated in 2014, indicated that all efforts to secure financial clearance for their absorption have proved futile, while many hospitals lack doctors, putting the lives of patients at risk.

In a heartfelt petition to Citi News to highlight their plight, a doctor, John-Diego Kosoe, lamented the dire situation of his colleagues who are idle.

This, according to Mr. Kosoe has even compelled some doctors to leave Ghana for greener pastures.

The petitioner noted that, “out of frustration, I know 3 of my colleagues who contracted huge personal loans and left the country for Germany, just to hustle out there, to do German language courses and get absorbed into their system.”

As it stands now, Ghana has one doctor attending to about 10, 450 patient. This is far below the one doctor to 5000 patients ratio per the recommendations of the Commonwealth, and the 1 doctor to 1,320 patients per the recommendations from WHO.

–

By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Gov’t’s neglect of jobless doctors, dentists worrying – GMA appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The Council had said back in May 2016 that, it would introduce practitioners’ stamps in July of that year, but more than a year following the announcement, the plans for the mandatory use of the stamps are now being rolled out.

[contextly_sidebar id=”I0LTF8MzIuTEEjICSZZRLyLi4PgGswgN”]The Registrar of the Medical and Dental Council, Dr. Eli Atikpui,  said this measure is being put in place to ensure that practitioners with the Council are easily identified by the patients they care for.

This he believes will help root out persons who operate as medical practitioners without licenses.

“Any practitioner that has registered with the Medical and Dental Council has a unique number, and Council is saying that, from January next year, all practitioners working in Ghana in any health institution registered by the  Medical and Dental Council should carry a practitioners’ stamp. When you go to your institution and you are given a prescription, the first thing to look out for is the practitioner’s stamp where you’ll have the practitioner’s name and unique number,” he said

Dr. Atikpui also stated that, the Council was working on getting their practitioners to wear name tags as well, in the institutions they work.

“The other thing is we are trying to ensure that any institution that has practitioners working in, they practitioners should go there with name tags. These are the things we are trying to institute to ensure that we are all safe and the Ghanaian at large is safe,” he added.

Meanwhile, a former Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) Dr. Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyira, has lauded the new directive, but called for more cooperation between the public and the regulatory agencies.

“It’s a step in the right direction, the public should be educated that the doctor is the one who has undertaken a course of study and has been certified to practice. You only know that doctor by the stamp of the regulatory body, if the public understands this, anytime you go to any place and somebody prescribes something you are not afraid because you know where to seek clarifications,” he said.

“There are a lot of people who practice in the villages that the public are not aware of. In that case, they need to work closely with the people at the health facility regulatory agencies.”

Quacks rooted out

Since January 2016, 20 quack doctors have been arrested across the country.

Ten (10) of the quack doctors were arrested in the Greater Accra Region, three in the Central Region, and the rest were arrested in the Volta and Eastern Regions.

Dr. Atikpui explained that, of the 20 arrested, five had been prosecuted and sentenced.

–

By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Doctors to carry special stamps from 2018 to root out quacks appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

They have threatened to picket at the Ministry of Health to have their employment issues addressed.

[contextly_sidebar id=”8dD1fZBqnCsxULzHeFklNOZhAoLuPefZ”]The group, who graduated from the Kintampo College of Health in the Brong Ahafo Region between 2013 and 2015, say the government is yet to recruit them after although they’ve completed all the mandatory academic processes.

The spokesperson of the group, Asante Offei, told Citi News that, the government had refused to employ them despite completing the one-year mandatory internship, and that they are prepared to go all lengths to have their issue addressed.

“We know that the only language the government and the agencies understand is picketing. So we have planned that we will be hitting the premises of the Ministry of Health to picket so that the entire nation will know that there is a backlog of Pas that are uncared for, abandoned and their skills are rusting in the house.”

Picketing at the Health Ministry to demand employment has become a common phenomenon in the country especially in the last three (3) years.

The government has consistently given assurances that it will address their demands, but that has often been after series of protests including picketing at the ministry.

Recently, a group of unemployed nurses spent two days at the Ministry demanding their posting. They had their issue resolved after they spent the night at the Ministry.

Some trained veterinary doctors in the country, last week also threatened to take legal action against the government because they had been left several months without jobs despite completing their academic program.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance finally cleared some 245 doctors after six months of being unemployed.

Last week, the commitment of the government to absorbing these doctors, and healthcare in general, was questioned when one of the doctors wrote to Citi FM conveying the frustration of the jobless doctors who appear ready to serve the country.

–

By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Jobless physician assistants to picket at Health Ministry appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The doctors have also issued a month’s ultimatum to the government, threatening that they may take legal action if the government fails to meet their demand.

[contextly_sidebar id=”0zxlpRK4m03DJGM0afwPM3gJypwZ4Tbb”]Speaking to Citi News, one of the affected doctors, Dr. Emmanuel Kodua, said all efforts to get the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to address the concerns have proven futile.

He noted that, about 65 doctors, for three batches, were currently yet to be given their appointment letters although they had completed their respective academic studies.

He noted that, although the affected groups had submitted all relevant documents for their postings, they are yet to get a positive response from the government.

“What we are demanding is that, for the first and second batch, we need employment… We have not been given our appointment letters. Meanwhile, we have finished our National Service and even we have sent our report to the registrar as he requested.”

“As we speak now, two batches are in the house; they’ve not been posted, and the third batch is doing their housemanship now, but they have not been served their appointment letters but have been asked to do their housemanship, so they are also demanding their appointment letters,” he said.

“Even though we’ve finished, and the council is supposed to arrange for our license, as at now, they’ve not arranged for our license, which means that we are not supposed to do anything related to veterinary medicine because we do not have a license. We are looking for employment and also the appointment letters that have not been given, they should make that available,” he added.

The demands of the veterinary doctors come at a time when many different trained professional health groups are protesting against government for failing to absorb them into the public health system which has a huge gap in terms of human resource.

Some have had to picket at the Health Ministry before securing financial clearance to be employed.

245 jobless doctors get financial clearance after Citi FM’s ‘intervention’

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance has finally cleared some 245 doctors after six months of being unemployed.

Earlier this week, the commitment of the government to absorbing these doctors, and healthcare in general, was questioned when one of the doctors wrote to Citi FM conveying the frustration of the jobless doctors who appear ready to serve the country.

The concerns of the medical doctors and the delays in financial clearance for these doctors and many other public sector workers, was also widely discussed on Ghana’s award-winning morning show, the Citi CBS.

–

By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post 65 jobless veterinary doctors give gov’t 1-month ultimatum appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Earlier this week, the commitment of the government to absorbing these doctors, and healthcare in general, was questioned when one of the doctors wrote to Citi FM conveying the frustration of the jobless doctors who appear ready to serve the country.

The concerns of the medical doctors and the delays in financial clearance for these doctors and many other public sector workers, was also widely discussed on Ghana’s award-winning morning show, the Citi CBS.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, Dr. John-Diego Kosoe confirmed that the doctors were informed on Thursday evening “by way of a text message that we had got the finance clears for 245 medical officers who had been home for the past five to six months after the housemanship.”

“I personally went to the Ministry [of Finance] today [Friday] and true to it, we’ve got the clearance. I saw the letter and the list to that effect,” he said.

[contextly_sidebar id=”xyKckF2uK3IIN1MYmodBrrHDIApy9MWT”]In a heartfelt petition to Citi News to highlight their plight, a doctor, Dr. Kosoe, lamented the dire situation of his colleagues, some of whom have left Ghana for greener pastures.

The doctors had said all efforts to secure financial clearance for their absorption have proven futile, while Ghana deals with a doctor deficit, which ultimately threatens healthcare in the country.

Dr. John-Diego Kosoe’s most recent follow up to the Ministry of Health was on October 9, 2017.

After the letter, the Health Ministry, in an interview with Citi News, pleaded with the unemployed doctors waiting for financial clearance for posting, to consider the country’s financial constraints and wait a little while longer.

The Ministry’s Public Relations Officer, Robert Cujdoe, explained that their delay in posting was because financial clearance had not yet been given for the doctors.

Challenges with financial clearance

The issue of financial clearance for public sector workers cut across various aspects of health care, with nurses and midwives, among others in the past, complaining about their unemployed status.

Education has also been affected, with primary, secondary and tertiary stakeholders known to make appeals to government for clearance and posting of additional workers.

Like the health sector, there is also a deficit of teachers and other staff, with an institution like the Ghana Institute of Journalism, recently appealing to the Ministry of Finance to grant the institute the financial clearance to replace staff, following approval by the Public Services Commission (PSC) in January this 2017.

The GJA said its current total staff strength stands at 80 for a school faculty size of 24.

The need for validation and clearance noted as a measure to overcome the prevalence of ghost names, and their resulting corruption and revenue leaks.

–

By: Godwin Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post 245 jobless doctors get financial clearance after Citi FM’s ‘intervention’ appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.