Mr Albert Asiedu-Ofei, the President of the Association of Health Service Administrators of Ghana (AHSAG) on Friday appealed to the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) to review the placement of health Administrators on the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).

He said it was important for the Director General of the Ghana Health Service to dialogue with the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission to have upward review for the Health Administrators to sustain morale in the health service in the country.

Mr Asiedu-Ofei made the appeal in Tamale during the closing ceremony of AHSAG 38th annual conference and continuing professional education meeting in Tamale.

The three-day event was to deliberate and propose solutions to challenges affecting the effective delivery of health care in the country.

The event was on the theme: “Sustaining Health Care Financing in an Unstable Economic Environment; the challenges and opportunities.”

"A number of Health Service Administrators in the country have been rendering continuous service in the health institutions in the country for over six years without formal employment”, Mr Asiedu-Ofei said.

He said the administrators had been performing very critical roles in the health delivery service in the country.

Mr Aseidu-Ofei appealed to the Minister of Health and Director General of the Ghana Health Service to regularize the engagement of these officers in to the health service.

He said AHSAG had reviewed and submitted its concerns and comments to the Inter-Ministerial Co-ordinating Committee on the new health bill in the Hospitals Act, 525, which seeks to establish a health Commission and to decentralize the health service to make it an integral part of the Local Government Service at the District level as envisaged in the National Decentralization Agenda.

He appealed to the Minister of Health, who is also a member of the Inter-Ministerial Co-ordinating Committee, to consider the proposals and recommendations in the supreme interest and operational viability of the Bill when it is passed.

Mr Abu D. Kuntulo, General Secretary of the Health Services Workers’ Union of TUC, called on the trade unions and professional associations operating within the health sector to join the International Trade Unions and multinational corporations to fight a course to improve the socio-economic well-being of its members.

He stated that the West Africa Health Organisation (WAHO) showed that most counties including Ghana had not been able to attain the 15 per cent annual budgetary health financing set out by the Abuja Declaration.

The AHSAG is a group of Health Managers from the public, private, mission and quasi-government health institutions in the country.