Kumasi: Aggrieved lab workers at KATH launch one-week sit-down strike
19th May 2021
Workers at the Laboratory Services Department (LSD) at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) have declared a one-week sit-down strike, starting Thursday, May 20, 2021.
The strike will mark an escalation in a row between the workers and management of the hospital over what they say an attempt to impose two physicians on them after they were posted to head the haematology unit of the LSD.
On Monday, the workers were captured wearing red armbands with some tied on walls and doors at various departments to highlight their demands.
The decision to strike was however arrived at an emergency meeting on Wednesday, May 19, 2021.
Local Chairman of GAMLS at KATH Ernest Badu Boateng said: “We will not sit down for any other professional within the health team to come and tell us that they are more qualified than us and that they can perform more than we do.
“All we are saying that we respect their profession and so they should respect ours… It is our duty by law under Act 857 to perform all laboratory diagnostic tests”, he further added.
The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) is one of Ghana’s COVID-19 testing and referral centers in the northern sector.
There are fears this new development may affect operations at the hospital’s testing center as workers will have to halt operations for the next one week.
“All laboratory services will be affected. No laboratory staff will be working on any sample. All the people in the COVID-19 labs will not be working as part of the strike.
We want management to act on this matter and save the ordinary Ghana from all this trauma”, Ernest Boateng warned.
Source: Daily Mail GH