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Prolonged strikes will cripple the economy - Dr. Gatsi

Dr John Gatsi said prolonged strikes had the tendency to impact negatively on economic growth prospects

 

An Economist and Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, Dr John Gatsi, has called for calm between labour and the government, explaining that the current situation where labour uses strikes to achieve their desires is detrimental to the economic growth of the country.

He said prolonged strikes had the tendency to impact negatively on economic growth prospects and, thus, called on the medical doctors and teachers to return to work while negotiations on their conditions of service continued.

He said though the impact depended on the sector of the economy, strikes generally distorted productivity of workers.

According to Graphic Business, Dr Gatsi said the health sector was sensitive to the economy such that income generation to repay debt related to some internally executed projects of some of the bigger public health facilities might be truncated and placed some of the equipment under utilised over the period of the strike by the Ghana Medical Association (GMA).

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“Monitoring and care for health equipment maybe undermined during the period of the strike. Clearly export revenue from health normally through health tourism will reduce and limit the contribution of the sector to the growth of the services sector and to Gross Domestic Product (GDP),” he said.

He said the strike was also likely going to increase the cost of access to health care as many would arrange for alternative health care in the private health institutions.

“The strike may affect health tourism of the country. In recent times, many citizens of neighbouring countries and foreigners are accessing selected specialised health services from public health facilities,” he said.

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