GAMLS calls-off the labour action in Parliament of Ghana

The leadership of the Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS) on 01st June 2021 in the Parliament of Ghana and before the Select Committee on Health called off the industrial action that had emanated from the various regional branches and the chapters in the Teaching Hospitals. The strike which started from the GAMLS’s Chapter in the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) spread like wildfire to other regions and chapters of the professional body.

It was about a protest from medical laboratory scientists to the posting of two physicians to the laboratory department in KATH. From history, the scientists clearly saw that the action by the management of KATH was just a catalyst to achieving a set objective by the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons (GCPS) and the Ghana Medical Association (GMA). The objective is to train the physicians to head and manage medical laboratories and to validate results.

The impasse is something that has existed since 2009 and was manifested in 2013 when the GCPS resisted the implementation of the National Health Laboratory policy.

With the agitation in Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in 2015 and a nationwide strike in 2016 all bothering on this same impasse, it is the hope that the trust reposed in the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health will yield fruits.

We all need to follow it through till the matter is resolved.