The Ghana Physician Assistants Association (GPAA) is demanding answers over the arrest of seven of its members who picketed at the Finance Ministry in Accra on Tuesday, April 25.
The seven were arrested and taken to the Regional Police Command for flouting the original agreement with the police which was to converge outside the Accra Sports Stadium and not to picket at the Ministry of Health.
GPAA in a solidarity statement underscored the importance Physician Assistants play in healthcare delivery in Ghana and called on the “Ministry of Health to open the portal and allow them to apply and subsequently appoint them to perform the healthcare services they so passionately want to deliver.”
Below is the full statement.
ARREST OF UNEMPLOYED PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS
The attention of the Leadership of the Ghana Physician Assistants Association (GPAA), a Health Professional Union, has been drawn to the arrest of seven (7) leaders of unemployed Physician Assistants today 25th April 2023 for picketing at the Ministry of Health.
These people were protesting the fact that they have not been posted years after their professional qualifications, and were demanding answers from the Ministry as to why the Ministry has not opened the recruitment portal for them for the past years.
Physician Assistants are the bedrock in ensuring healthcare access to the poor in underserved and hard-to-reach communities. These are healthcare professionals in most Municipal/District Hospitals, Polyclinics, and Health Centres performing both clinical and public health duties.
Ghana as a country is faced with huge deficit in health professionals which is compounded by exodus of professionals to Europe and America. It is therefore strange why the ones that are willing to stay and work here are purportedly being hampered by officialdom and public sector bureaucracy.
We unreservedly support the call by these qualified professionals for the Ministry of Health to open the portal and allow them to apply and subsequently appoint them to perform the healthcare services they so passionately want to deliver.