Nurses are planning to declare a sit-down strike
Rotational nurses have given the government a two-day ultimatum to pay their allowances else they strike.
Addressing a press conference today, Wednesday, 29 September 2021, the Vice-president of the Ghana Nurse-Midwife Trainees’ Association, Mr Madugu Kwame Richard, said the nurses have not been paid their allowances for the past eight months since they started the mandatory service.
He said since the assumption of duty in February 2021, they have not been given IPPD forms to fill nor do they have staff IDs.
Additionally, he said they have not been registered biometrically to enable the Controller and Accountant General to effect payment of their allowances.
He, therefore, called on the Ministry of Health to do the needful by ensuring that they undertake the various processes to enable them get paid by September 30, else they will strike.
“These nurses and midwives posted by the National Service Secretariat are posted not based on their geographical location, tribe or region; hence, the need for them to feed themselves, pay rent, secure themselves, pay light bill, pay water bill, transport themselves to and from work on many occasions, which all involves the use of money.
“We further wish to state that failure by the sole agency, which is the ministry of health, to give the rotational nurses and midwives clearance by the close of 30 September, will [leave us with] no option than to lay down our tools, since a hungry nurse is a potential killer,” Mr Richard said.
He also said the nurse trainee allowance has stalled for half a year now while some have also been in arrears for about 20 months.
He called on the government to pay the allowance since their parents have stopped giving them money for their upkeep with the notion that the allowance is being paid by the government.
The Vice-president of the group also called on the government to post the 2019 batch of nurses and midwives, who are still at home, to narrow the one-nurse-to-18-patients ratio.