A year ago while working at the Korle-bu teaching hospital, a colleague and a friend fainted while onward rounds taking care of a patient. The nurses and doctors present quickly rushed to his aid and eventually this young doctor was resuscitated and brought back to life. He spent the rest of the morning in bed. Later that afternoon, he was discharged and to my amazement asked to pay for the treatment received. He was an employee, a doctor at the hospital but as is the case, not entitled to free healthcare.
Doctors in Ghana are once again threatening to embark on industrial action. Interesting to note is the fact that they are not asking for an increase in salaries. They just want to be paid what had been agreed upon between them and the government. Various persons have tried to insult the intelligence of doctors and have come up with various arguments to justify why doctors need not embark on strike actions. I will try to educate readers about the Life of the Ghanaian doctor.
MYTH 1: ONLY STRAIGHT AAA STUDENTS BECOME DOCTORS?
I am an average student and not a straight 3A student. The straight-A students from my Secondary school are at MIT and Harvard doing engineering courses. I was a regular student who studied and has been blessed with the gift of healing the sick. Intelligence is an essential part of being a medical doctor. During medical school, a trainee doctor is required to identify and know the locations of all the veins, arteries, and nerves in the human body. You will have to study how the body functions in health and in disease, all the biochemical reactions taking place in the body, and how to affect them with the various drugs. That is why it takes so long to train a doctor.
MYTH 2: GOVERNMENT PAYS SCHOOL FEES FOR ONLY DOCTORS?
It takes 7 years to train as a doctor in Ghana. (Has currently been reduced to 6 years). I entered the University Of Ghana in 2003 and completed medical school in 2011. While at Legon, I paid fees like all undergraduates at the university. For the first 3 years, we stayed on the Legon campus and paid hostel fees like any student. After Legon, we moved to Korle-bu. There are two groups of medical students: REGULAR and FULL FEE PAYING Ghanaian students. The only difference between them is that the government of Ghana subsidies the tuition fee for the regular student. Full fee-paying students paid GHS 3000.00 and the regular students paid GHS 600.00 They both pay for their own accommodation, instruments, and feeding.
MYTH 3: DOCTORS ARE GIVEN ALLOWANCES, CARS AND A HOUSE BY GOVERNMENT?
I live in my own rented apartment. I drive an old car I inherited from my dad. Before I became a doctor, I heard government gives doctors a free car after graduation. Perhaps that was during the colonial days!
MYTH 4: DOCTORS COME TO WORK LATE AT 9:00 AM LOOKING TIRED
As a doctor, I work every day of the week. Work normally starts at 7:30 am and ends at 5:00 p.m.I work three nights a week and work 24 hours every other weekend. Every morning starts with a ward round (patients on admission) and then continue with the out-patients (OPD). Each doctor sees about 60 patients a day at my facility on an OPD basis. I am on call almost every day because once you get a call from the hospital; you have no choice but to report. I work on weekends and public holidays without any bonus. Female doctors who are pregnant work every day until the day they go into labor. They don’t get excuse duties as regular antenatal women have.
MYTH 5: DOCTORS ARE GREEDY AND SELFISH
I feel sad when I hear the public and potential patients insult doctors on the radio. From their meager salaries, doctors have to buy medication and emergency drugs for patients. Ghanaians are being taken for a ride in their own country. I lost a four-year-old girl at my facility a week ago. She was referred from Suhum with convulsions and fever. She was diagnosed with Meningitis. She was in a Coma when she arrived at our facility. Among the medications she needed was an antibiotic called Ceftriaxone. The original was needed in this case. The nurses and doctors had to pay their peanut salaries to sustain this girl for 3 days. Her condition improved while on this original antibiotic. But with inadequate funds, it was decided to purchase another brand of this same antibiotic with the NHIS. The patient started to deteriorate when the brand started. She died a few days later. The worst thing a doctor can witness is to see a patient die in front of you because the medication available was of low quality.
The MPs and Ministers do not even access healthcare in Ghana and when they do, they pay for their services in expensive private hospitals. Politicians are paid huge salaries and mind-blowing rent advances. They get free car loans and free fuel.
Doctors are not even asking for the above. Doctors are being paid less than $800.00 and some even had GHS90.00 some months ago as a month’s salary. All we ask for is to be paid what the government promised after the last strike about a year ago.
MYTH 6: GOVERNMENT SHOULD TRAIN MORE PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS AND NURSES TO REPLACE DOCTORS
It will be great to have PAs working in our hospitals. They are an important part of the healthcare team. But can they replace doctors? Ever wonder why they are called PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS? They are to assist doctors.
The study of medicine is difficult but the practice of medicine is not. My grandmother can treat malaria and diarrhea at home. Chemical sellers in Ghana can treat basic ailments like malaria, typhoid fever, and gastroenteritis. But the knowledge to diagnose meningitis, typhoid perforation, intussusception, and the nephrotic syndrome was learnt after 7 years of rigorous training. So why not invest in more medical schools to reduce the doctor-patient ratio?
The MPs, Ministers, and all the “BIG MEN” in Ghana are saying doctors should get back to work and continue to struggle to survive. They also say Ghana is poor and now developing. But with their allowances and bonuses, one wonder: WHILE OTHERS ARE BITING ON SOFT CHOCOLATE BARS, WHY DO WE EXPECT DOCTORS IN GHANA TO CHEW COPPER BULLETS?
(The writer is a Medical Doctor and a Human Rights activist)
