President John Dramani Mahama says government has begun processes to absorb more trained nurses who have been rendered redundant following a freeze on public sector employment.
According to the President, more health facilities are being built across the country to absorb the numbers that remain unemployed despite completing their training and national service.
The President’s assurance comes a day after members of the coalition of unemployed nurses and midwives demonstrated in Accra against their continuous stay at home. over their unemployment.
The agitated nurses have vowed to replicate the demonstrations across the country if government fails to engage them. According to them, there is enough space in the health sector to accommodate them.
Responding to questions on how his administration intends to deal with the matter on Radio BAR in the Brong Ahafo Region, the President said his government is creating more space to absorb the numbers.
The President however failed to give specific timelines as to when the nurses would be employed.
“We are in the process of recruiting nurses. That is nurses who have come out of the training institutions and so that process is ongoing. Even by virtue of building more health facilities, we are creating more space to absorb them.”
“We are expanding the health sector as quickly as we can and as we expand the health sector, we continue to absorb more nurses. ..We are taking teachers, we are hiring nurses as they come out of school. It is something that we are continuing to work on. I will ask the Ministry of Health to speed up the process of that recruitment so that we can get the nurses.”
Teacher trainees’ concerns
On the issue of the suspended teacher trainee allowances, the President debunked assertions that trainees were suffering following the scrapping of that system.
He said his government only swapped the allowances with student loans, in order to increase enrollment in the colleges of education.
“The most important thing is 60 percent of them will not be in the Colleges of Education if we were still paying teacher trainee allowances because there was a quota system. The benefits of swapping teacher trainee allowances with students loans is that it allows us to abolish the quota system and makes more people come into the college of education to be able to get a training as a teacher and get a job and so 60 percent of those who are currently in the colleges of education won’t be there if we were paying trainee allowances.”
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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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