Allied health professionals over the weekend held a peaceful demonstration at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) against management, demanding respect and a refusal to be treated as second-class healthcare workers.
The procession was intended to draw attention to long-standing governance and leadership concerns affecting allied health services within KBTH, while respectfully calling for an urgent resolution to the matter.
Specifically, the group is advocating for the creation and full operationalisation of an Allied Health Directorate at the hospital, alongside the appointment of a substantive Allied Health Director to provide effective governance.
Speaking in an interview on Rainbow Radio 87.5FM’s Nyankonton Mu Nsem, Dr Gloria Amegatcher, Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists, stated that they simply want to be accorded the respect they deserve within the healthcare delivery ecosystem. She noted that the Korle-Bu chapter has engaged management, the Governing Board, and the Ministry of Health for several years regarding the establishment of this directorate.
She added that the process must be concluded expeditiously in the interest of peace, stability, and effective healthcare delivery.
Furthermore, Dr Amegatcher reiterated that their laboratory results, which maintain a 99% accuracy rate, play a vital role in enabling medical doctors to discharge their duties professionally. She pointed out that despite recent false assertions challenging the accuracy of their results, doctors continually refer patients to the laboratory for examination.
“We have been treated unfairly for years. Laboratory technicians or laboratory workers are demanding respect. Our professional work must be recognised as valuable. Our contribution in the health sector must be valued. It looks as if we are being treated as second-class citizens, which is not good. We are demanding that the doctors respect our work. Secondly, our head has been removed, and we are demanding that he be reinstated. We don’t have to get someone from a different group or profession to head us. We have capable professionals within us to manage us,” she noted.
She said, “We matter a lot, and they cannot survive without the laboratory, and that is a fact. And so they should treat the laboratory professionals with dignity and professional respect, and not as second-class professionals. That is what we are asking for. We also demand fair leadership, fair respect, and justice in our hospitals. The irony is that although they had claimed our lab results are not genuine, they keep referring patients to us. We have standardisation, and our work remains accurate, and they can attest to it. And so they should stop the intimidation, the discrimination, and the disrespect.”
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
