GMA welcomes NDC promises on health, rejects Okada legalisation

The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has welcomed the main opposition NDC’s manifesto promises on health but disagrees with the party’s plan to legalise Okada should they win the December polls.

According to the association, the party’s plan to increase maternity leave from three to four months is also commendable as it is almost in line with the association’s earlier call for maternity leave to be increased to half a year.

Speaking with Ultimate FM’s Isaac Bediako, Vice Chairman of the association Dr Frank Serebour commended the two major political parties for drafting a good manifesto which attempts to address some of the key challenges in the country’s health sector.

He, however, urged the opposition NDC to give further explanations on how they intend to fund some of the mouth-watering promises captured in their manifesto for the general public to take a firm decision on the voting day.

He said “if you look at some of the issues that they have raised, you will realize that they are all trying to address the same things. As we speak, we have new regions that have been created, there are issues of new regional hospitals that have to be built. You’ll realise that both parties have indicated their commitments to build regional hospitals.”

He added: “the NDC talks about the fact that they are going to introduce what we call four months’ maternity leave which to the GMA we believe is very commendable. Because as far as we are concerned we have previously advocated that women who give birth should be given six months’ maternity leave. So, if they are not even getting six months and they are getting four months, for us it is something that is very good, we are happy with it.”

“Both parties can do better. There is a need for us not to go into the area of okada that they are talking about. Because the GMA in April 2019 indicated that we think that the country should not legalise the Okada business. So, you could see that in this area we sharply depart from what the NDC is saying. And I believe that even the NPP is also giving indications that they want to go the same line even though it is not in their manifesto.”