Madam Theresa Salifu, a Deputy Chief Medical Laboratory Scientist, has raised concerns over government’s inability to pay some allowances promised frontline healthcare workers when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country.
The Manager of the Wa Municipal Hospital Laboratory, lamented that some of their colleagues who got infected by the disease along the line have not yet received the insurance package promised them by the government.
Madam Theresa who raised the concern in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Wa also expressed dissatisfaction with the government for coming up with a policy to identify some people as front liners over others.
“Everybody is a front liner in the laboratory and for government to put in a policy to identify some people as front liners is a joke of the health system”, she said.
“From the gateman to the mortuary man, everybody handles COVID-19 cases at some point in time and I’m sure some people even got infected without even knowing”, she emphasized.
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The Deputy Chief Medical Laboratory Scientist noted that for some of their colleagues who tested positive along the line and have not received their compensation, the system had not been fair to them.
Madam Theresa, therefore, wants the government to honour it’s promise by paying these allowances and insurance packages to the affected health workers to appreciate their sacrifices.
She said apart from working overtime due to the lack of adequate staff, they also initiated a number of strategies including the improvisation of sample collection and preparation of rooms and a testing site.
Madam Theresa explained that they had to shut down some departments while relocating some to improve the situation and also protect staff against any risk of infection.
“If you made all these sacrifices and what has been promised you is not being given to you, it is discouraging”, she said.
President Nana Akufo-Addo in a nationwide broadcast on April 5, 2020, announced some incentives the government has proposed for frontline healthcare workers.
These include exemption from the payment of tax on their employment emoluments for a three-month period commencing from April 2020 and a daily allowance of GH¢150.00 payable to those undertaking contact tracing.
The rest are an additional allowance of 50 per cent of their basic salary per month for a four-month period commencing from March 2020, and an insurance package with an assured sum of GH¢350,000.00.
Although the free tax package had been implemented, that of the 50 percent allowance was not carried out given the seeming controversy over the definition and qualification of a frontline health worker.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 case count in the Upper West Region currently stands at 741 cases out of which 704 have been discharged while 34 people died leaving three active cases.
