Nurses at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital have defied a directive by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Haruna Iddrisu urging them to call off their strike.
Haruna Iddrisu had described the strike as “unacceptable,” saying “indeed you just don’t walk through a strike as it pleases you, there are laws which govern strikes and there are processes.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”grQ9aRMa8Krw3S2nAZObJAJkneCrnKrS”]Nurses at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital laid down their tools last Thursday over unpaid salaries.
The strike follows what the nurses describe as deceit and failure on the part of government to fulfill promises to pay them.
Meanwhile, the Employment Minister had urged the aggrieved nurses to rescind their decision and return to work because government is finalizing moves to settle their arrears.
“I will urge them to return back to work. I will honour my word and I stand by the assurances that were given. It is work in progress, it is not a matter that we have not acted on,” he promised.
But speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday, one of the spokespersons of the aggrieved nurses, Christian Adisenu said they will only return to work when government settles their salary arrears.
“When this issue started we did not just get up and say we have a right to go on strike and then we embarked on strike. It is important to state clear that our people feel that it is their right to be paid when they work. The question that we should be asking is that is it also legal for someone to be working without being paid?”
Christian Adisenu said that the nurses are not happy with the turn of events saying “when they heard the Minister’s statement on air most of them were annoyed. They felt like they were not human beings or even part of this country.”
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana