Blackmail

By Kofi Akordor
Imagine the frustration of a young medical officer who, after a hard day’s work, got home only to realise that he could not unwind watching his favourite television programme because electricity was off. Technicians of the energy company are at war with their employees over service conditions and have, therefore, withdrawn their services.
What about the mother who could not prepare the evening meal for the family because the taps would not flow simply because the water company workers were at loggerheads with their managers over better service conditions and would not work.
I once made a wrong calculation and paid dearly for it. I was to attend an interview and misjudged the flow of traffic. Before I could realise it, I was hard up with time and desperately started to flag every taxi passing with the intention to pick ‘dropping’. As it were, all taxis seemed to have different missions that morning and, therefore, ignored my signals. In the end, I lost the opportunity.
We all suffer anytime electricity power goes off, for the sake of those so-called maintenance schedules, load-shedding or because the transformer had suffered a mishap because of lightning or through the activities of thieves.
We know what happens when the tap does not flow for a day or two for whatever reason. Programmes are thrown out of gear and even at the workplace we lack concentration because our minds are on where to get the precious water for household use. 
The stench from the toilets at home, the office and other public places keeps reminding us that a very important resource — water — is missing in our lives.
Until we are confronted with such deprivations, nobody bothers to give a split-second thought to workers of the power company or that of water. 
As for taxi drivers, we only remember them as illiterate rogues who will not wash in the morning before jumping behind the steering wheel for the day’s work. Wait until you are suddenly taken sick in the night; then you will realize that taxi drivers are gods.
Such is life that no matter how small or insignificant others are, we are inter-dependent and the collapse of one unit, whether deliberate or by accident, disorganises our personal, official, commercial and industrial activities.
We do not spare a moment to think about the policeman (after all the police only take bribes) until a thief or an armed robber raids our homes or a careless driver rams into our vehicle. Then we are on all fours seeking police intervention. Can we imagine the chaos at our traffic intersections where our traffic lights never work without the presence of the police? That is why we should not trivialise the importance of anyone in society.
No matter how hard we may try, we still fall sick or fall victim to accidents. That is why doctors will continue to play a big role in our daily lives. It will, therefore, be suicidal for anybody to underestimate the importance of medical officers. In fact, even the services of the village medicine man are greatly revered and his opinions on health matters are taken with all seriousness.
Ours is a very dirty environment, especially Accra, Kumasi and other big towns, and, coupled with poor nutrition and bad lifestyles, we are always at the mercy of various diseases. So doctors, whether we like it or not, will be our regular companions.
I do not think I will be wrong if I venture to say that the majority of Ghanaians value and appreciate the work of doctors and other health workers and would wish that they get everything they demand. Anytime I visit the hospital and see the condition under which health workers operate, I know that even though it is their choice, they are making a lot of sacrifices that must be appreciated and fully rewarded.
Doctors, like all other workers, have every right to agitate for better service conditions and I believe members of the public will support their cause, knowing the role they are playing in our survival as individuals and as a nation. But, as stated earlier, in all scheme of things, we should not forget that we are in an interdependent world and no matter how we value ourselves, we should not ignore the roles others play in our lives.
Many considerations might have gone into drafting the labour laws of the country which outlawed strikes by certain categories of workers, including doctors and other health workers. Unfortunately, doctors have ignored this law and not even the pleas of President John Evans Atta Mills will turn their hearts. 
Whether it takes a few days, weeks, months or even years, they will get their money one day. But lives lost are gone forever, even though, as Dr Emmanuel Adom Winful, the President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), declared, whether they the doctors worked or not, people would die anyway.
The doctors’ strike will eventually fall on the laps of some politicians who may want to make capital gain out of it, forgetting that the phenomenon has been with us for years.
In the past, strikes (call them industrial battles) were fought for two main reasons. First, to press home demands for better service conditions and two to settle political scores with the government in power.
Remember the Association of Recognised Professional Bodies (ARPB) and its battles against the Acheampong dictatorship. That umbrella body for various professionals, including doctors and lawyers, made it difficult for Acheampong to go ahead with his UNIGOV doctrine which was a form of a one-party state.
The ARPB also played a significant role in the return to civilian rule by the Supreme Military Council under General F.W.K. Akufo. Today, thanks to multi-party democracy, it will not be easy for any union or professional body to do political battle with a government, since membership of all bodies cuts across political parties.
So even though some political parties may want to capitalise on the genuine grievances of workers, at the end of the day, individual members of the same group will begin to advise themselves if they suspect an infiltration for diabolical purposes.
Medical doctors are part of us. They are our fathers, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, friends and old school mates. Therefore, whatever affects them affects all of us. Their joy is our joy, just as their sorrow is our sorrow.
We would, therefore, wish that having registered their protest at the slow pace of their placement on the Single Spine Salary Structure and other matters, they will respect public sentiment and go back to work while the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) and other relevant bodies dialogue with the GMA to thrash out all contentious issues.
Some of us do not know anything about single or any other spine. But even from afar, we can picture a mathematically complex assignment which will require a lot of patience and meticulous calculation. I do not think those who are already on the SSSS are fully satisfied with their lot and so it will be for a long time until things stabilise when the concept is mastered.
Doctors may hold the trump card today because we are all sick people and we are always at the risk of suffering from one form of health hazard or another. So we shall continue to beg the doctors to go back to work. But beyond their genuine grievances and appropriate demands, for them to continue to ignore our pleas could only amount to blackmailing a whole nation.
Dr Winful has boasted that no law or power will compel them to go back to work until they exact their pound of flesh. That is true. But there is one law that no one can run away from. That is Cause and Effect or the Law of Karma. You may call it the Universal Law and that one is a judgement that comes over us by our own doing.  In simple terms, it says do unto others what you want others to do to you.  I do not think our doctors would want to see their parents, relations and friends suffer undue pain and die eventually.

fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
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