People
seeking medical care are increasingly drifting to alternative medical practitioners
for attention as medical doctors continue with their industrial action.
Members
of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) have been on strike for the past four weeks
over unpaid allowances and other welfare issues.
The
situation has crippled activities in government health facilities, forcing patients
to turn to private and missionary health centers to access healthcare.
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News checks also indicate patients are trooping to herbal and alternative
medical centres to access treatment.
One
of such patients is Madam Janet Nair, a 55 year old trader who lives in the
Aboabo suburb of Kumasi. She had been seeking medical care at the Manhyia Government
Hospital and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.
Prior
to the current strike by the doctors, she was in the process of receiving
treatment for her waist pain at the Komfo Anokye Hospital. In her frustration
to get care, she resorted to an alternative health center and now she says
there is an improvement in her condition.
Madam
Janet is among several patients who frequent M.Y. Ventures, an alternative natural
healthcare center in Kumasi.
According
to Dr. Caesar, Chief Executive of M.Y. Ventures, there has been an increase in
number of patients within the period of the strike, though he attributes this
partly to new investments in his operations.
“We
have added some equipment to our work prior to the doctors’ strike so we don’t actually
know whether it is as a result of the strike or the improvements in our work that
give the difference”, he stated.
He
however admits such health facilities are limited in meeting the needs of
patients, especially in surgical and other complicated ailments.
Dr.
Caesar has therefore describes as shameful the country’s current state of
health delivery.
“We
should be ashamed of ourselves; this is not going to the doctors, it is
collective”, he emphasized. “Whatever brought about this problem is what is
making us ashamed – imagine your dear one dying just like that, not because
there are no drugs or no doctors but because of a common strike”.
The
alternative medical practitioner has enjoined the government to be proactive in
tackling issues in the medical front.
Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh
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