Pharmacists at the Brong Ahafo Regional and Sunyani Municipal Hospitals have joined their colleagues in the Government and Hospital Pharmacists Association (GHOSPA) to withdraw their services.

When the Ghana News Agency visited the two hospitals in the Sunyani Municipality at about 1100 on Tuesday, all their offices attached to the various wards, such as the children’s and maternity wards as well as the main pharmacy at the Out Patients Department (OPD) were closed.

Patients with distressed faces were seen in a long queue at the Emergency Pharmacy Department which had been opened for patients to receive their prescribed medicines.

Madam Yaw Agyeiwaa, a patient at the Brong Ahafo Regional Hospital, said the situation needed prompt attention and appealed for government’s intervention to save lives.

She observed that queuing of patients at the Department was not appropriate since it was only for emergency cases and patients whose cases were not urgent did not need to compete with those who needed it most.

At the Sunyani Municipal Hospital, patients issued with prescriptions had to receive the hospital’s stamp on their forms to be submitted at the health providers under the National Health Insurance Scheme for the supply of their medicines, or buy them from pharmacy shops in town.

Members of GHOSPA on Monday issued a statement in Accra threatening to embark on strike unless and until they have been migrated onto the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) in line with their job evaluation and re-evaluation exercise.

It urged the public to bear with them since the Fair Wages and Salary Commission (FWSC) and management of the health sector were keen on perpetrating blatant injustice and bias against them.