The Ghana Physician Assistants Association is demanding the immediate withdrawal of the proposed amendment of the Health professionals’ regulatory body act.
According to them, the act is an attempt by the Medical and Dental Council and the Health Ministry to rip them of their autonomy.
Addressing the press, National Vice President for the Association, Rebecca Dede Bantey said her outfit will resist its passage.
“Having a separate regulatory body, we think will have the interest of the Physician Assistants at heart as far as the practice is concerned and for that matter everything concerning the Physician Assistant will be regulated by that body. As we speak we do not know how far we have gotten with the amendment bill.”
“We are being kept in the dark. We do not know what is going on. As we speak now, we do not know anything about it so whatever stage it has gotten to, it should be withdrawn.”
Physician assistants in Ghana last year (2018) stopped dispensing services at the outpatient departments (OPDs) in the various hospitals in the country in protest of what they said was government’s delay in resolving issues bothering them including salary discrepancies.
A statement from the leadership of the Ghana Physician Assistants Association directed “all physician assistants nationwide to effective Monday, 10th September 2018, withdraw all Out Patients Department (OPD) services as outlined in our road-map.”
The statement jointly signed by the Association’s President and acting General Secretary, Alhaji Chief Imoro Bandana II, and Peter Eyram Kuenyefu had said the decision had become necessary because government and the sector agencies “have not shown any commitment to resolve the numerous problems presented.”