The Medical Laboratory Professional Workers’ Union (MELPWU), in the Upper East Region has described their working conditions as “slavery in vain” in the era of modernization.
The workers, who number up to 200 plus members in the region, noted that despite the numerous risks associated with their work, the authorities that were supposed to oversee their conditions of service were rather oblivious to their plight.
“We are working in risk-prone areas; imagine you are working in an environment where you don’t have that serene atmosphere to keep the samples and such samples you are working on from escaping, then, you will rest assured that you are a potential victim to such a disease. Frequently, any time a laboratory worker gets three or more positive samples of any kind and is not lucky, he/she will be rest assured that getting infected with such a disease is high, this is not magic; it is real, and many of our colleagues have either died or suffered from diseases of such.”
Speaking on A1 Radio’s Daybreak Upper East Show regarding their conditions of service, the Secretary of MELPWU in the region, Nyame Abu Boateng, therefore called on the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission to be proactive on their demands as members were finding it difficult to cope with the economic crises.
“All that we have as our conditions of service, we don’t bargain for them, the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) did all that for us. We have made several appeals to the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, but it seems they are not minding us.”
Some of their demands include the government giving financial clearance to unemployed MLS graduates and IGF staff working in the laboratory, “creating a proper pay structure for its consultants, specialists, and doctor of medical laboratory science graduates, and creating a Medical Laboratory Science Council to specifically regulate their practice in Ghana”.
He further stressed that “based on the lackadaisical attitude of the FWSC, we can deduce that it is in bed with the government.”
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1 MHz|Moses Apiah|Ghana
