The Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare has announced steps to address grievances of all mortuary attendants or mortuary men across the country, including resourcing them while ensuring their health and safety.
The Mortuary Workers Association of Ghana have served notice that they will lay down their tools from the 20th of this month if their concerns over poor working conditions are not addressed.
They complain of poor remuneration, lack of logistics, no annual leave, meager salaries and employing some of them as casual workers for more than 20 years now.
But the Director General of the Ghana Health Service says he has met with medical superintendents of all government health facilities and directed them to take immediate steps to resolve the issues of the mortuary attendants.
According to him, he has directed and given guidance on how to structure their salaries, particularly those that are not on the government payroll, but on the hospital payroll, so that they can have a good life when they retire, explaining that they have been asked to cater for their Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) contributions among others.
‘’If for nothing at all we should be able to use the monies that we generate from the mortuaries to take care of them and to cater for their needs, to make them comfortable’’ he added.
Dr. Nsiah Asare opined that he has also asked that the mortuary attendants be well and properly resourced with the appropriate accoutrements including hand gloves, Wallington boots and disinfectants among others.
He said a team will be dispatched to the various health facilities across the country to ensure that the directive is adhered to and complied with.
‘’As I speak with you, tomorrow we are meeting senior managers of health facilities across the country and I will bring it up again, so that we deal with this issue once and for all. They should exercise patience. We know what their worth is and we will address their issue’’ he said.
Source: BestNewsGH.com
