The nurses at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital have called off their day-old sit-down strike.
They initiated the action on Monday in protest of government’s failure to pay their 10-month salary arrears.
[contextly_sidebar id=”5PUzOvd3bokDxMYaRvgj6ZfJL42KOTLE”] The nurses had also threatened a full-blown strike if their demands were not met by Friday.
The spokesman for the aggrieved nurses, Emmanuel Febiri, told Citi News:”We have seen the input of our names [for payment] being done and the the assurance is that by the end of August, if not so, latest by the end of September we would get our money. We had discussions with the Minister himself to that effect.”
The Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Haruna Iddrisu, confirmed this on Eyewitness News adding that about 6,000 nurses had been processed for payment.
“We have done the inputs for about 6.000 nurses with the Controller and Accountant General’s Department and we have an agreement with the nurses that they will get their money on or before the 30th of September,”he said.
The industrial action by the striking nurses was the latest in a wave of strikes in the health sector.
The Ghana Medical Association suspended services to all Out Patient Departments (OPDs) in various government hospitals last week after the negotiations with the government over their conditions of service broke down.
It provoked a war of words between government communicators and the GMA officials which intensified after the doctors demands in the negotiations were leaked to the public.
The National Council of the Government and Hospital Pharmacists Association are also on strike because of alleged discrepancies on their placement on the Single Spine Salary Structure.
By: Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana