Information Minister, Mustapha Hamid, at a news conference today [Tuesday], said the Finance Ministry has given clearance for them to be employed. He however did not state specifically which month they will be engaged.

“This year, government is employing 32,000 health professionals, and out of that 27,000 are nurses. The 32,000 are graduates from 2014 to 2016, who are going to be employed, these are people who were left unattended to by the previous administration and we are going to employ them.”

[contextly_sidebar id=”ZiEXFW4Pf8XdbCRMSc8Ai5Nf0T8ou4cj”]This comes after a new group of graduate nurses picketed at the Ministry of Health asking to be employed by government.

Picketing at the Health Ministry to demand employment has become a common phenomenon for various health professionals in the country especially in the last three (3) years.

The about 200 graduates who picketed at the Ministry on Monday say several appeals to the Ministry of Health to engage them after they completed school in 2016, have not yielded results.

Some of the nurses were clad in red and wielded placards with messages that urged government to immediately address their concerns.

The aggrieved students were prepared to spend the night at the Ministry if authorities failed to post them, but they were dispersed by police personnel, only to return to the Ministry today [Tuesday].

Last week, another group of bonded unemployed nurses and midwives staged a protest at the Ministry of Health to demand posting.

They said they have been idling at home for the past two years after successfully leaving school and completing their mandatory national service.

But Information Minister, Mustapha Hamid at the press conference said the picketing must stop because the Health Ministry will soon be posting them.

“Once the paper works are done, the Health Ministry will begin to post them across the country.”

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The graduates said several appeals to the Ministry for employment after they completed school in 2016, have not yielded results.

Citi News’ Michael Ogbodu reported that some of the nurses were clad in red and wielded placards with messages that urged government to immediately address their concerns.

The aggrieved students say they are prepared to spend the night at the Ministry if authorities fail to post them.

The leader of the group, Samuel Asante, told Citi News they believe they are being treated unfairly by the ministry.

“We are not moving an inch. We are here with our mosquito coils and everything so if we don’t get our posting, we are not leaving here,” he said.

He explained that the Ministry is trying to deliberately exclude them from the ongoing postings although clearance was given for all trainees from 2012 to 2016.

“We had a meeting with the Deputy Minister [Kingsley Aboagye Gyedu] and he tried to compare us with the private nurses saying that since we are not bonded, we are not part of the posting. It didn’t go down well with us and that is why we are here this afternoon to seek our immediate posting because they have released clearance and it is supposed to be given to the 2012 – 2016 batch of nurses so why is it that we who completed in the government-training centers, and we are being denied of posting now?” he said.

Last week, another group of bonded unemployed nurses and midwives staged a protest at the Ministry of Health to demand posting.

They said they have been idling at home for the past two years after successfully leaving school and completing their mandatory national service.

Picketing at the Health Ministry to demand employment has become a common phenomenon for various health professionals in the country especially in the last three (3) years.

The government has consistently given assurances that it will address their demands, but that has often been after series of protests including picketing at the ministry.

Late in 2017, a group of unemployed nurses spent two days at the Ministry demanding their posting. They had their issue resolved after they spent the night at the Ministry.

This appears to have set a precedent that has seen many other trainee nurses picket the ministry’s premises demanding posting and threatening to spend the night there.

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They lamented that two years since completing their training, they are yet to be posted by government.

Speaking in an interview with Citi News, the National President of a group of nurses, calling themselves the Ghana Nurse Midwife Trainee Association, Batiah Sami-Ulah Santi, said they had already obtained the necessary clearance and documentation but are yet to be assigned to health centres.

[contextly_sidebar id=”aIMfeOq25FBwpI0kcbVbMPzjSkHfGElg”]According to Batiah Sami-Ulah Santi, the Ministry of Health has shown little interest in posting them although the nation needs their services.

They were the first groups of nurses who completed the training without the allowances and hence were not bonded.

“We are about 9,905 in number. These nurses have been at home for more than 15 months now and are still not being engaged by government.”

He said when the president’s attention was drawn to their “he directed the Minister to respond.”

“The Minister while in front of the president stated that they had almost exhausted the 2017 budget but they look forward to adding this group of nurses to the 2018 budget to get them employed, hopefully, by the first quarter of 2018. We thought that was convincing because we had met with the president and he has given his word on it and right now we are in February. The Ministry of Health is not making any progress or saying anything positive about engaging us,” Batiah Sami-Ulah Santi added.

Bonded jobless nurses picket again at Health Ministry
Scores of bonded unemployed nurses and midwives earlier on Tuesday besieged the premises of the Ministry of Health to demand posting.

The trained health professionals said they have been idling at home for the past two years after successfully leaving school and completing their mandatory national service.

The spokesperson of the group, Daniel Obuor, told Citi News that the Ministry had failed to respond to their various letters over their unemployment.

“We have been here several times and each time we come they will tell you they are working on it. They will say go and come the next day… We just went there are they are still telling us that they don’t have our list. We are having challenges. We are now burdens in our homes,” he said.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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The staff carried out their threat to lay down their tools, in an attempt to compel the government to remove the facility’s Medical Director, Dr. Eugene Dordoye from his post.

[contextly_sidebar id=”dxnMRlrACf6hoDmRY9xS8adYS70ey3cH”]The nurses had earlier given the government a three-day ultimatum,and threatened to declare a strike, if the government fails to heed their calls.

They are accusing the Medical Director of maladministration and gross disrespect to subordinates.

Spokesperson for the Nurses, Daniel Danso, on Eyewitness News said the strike will be intensified by Monday if the Ministry of Health fails to meet their demands.

“We are still going to intensify our strike, but we are still in talks [with stakeholders] so we will have our sit down strike till Monday.”

We’re  not aware of any apology

Mr. Danso also indicated that, they are unaware of any apology from Mr. Dordoye.

Dr. Dordoye had issued an apology  in which he also explained what he believes might have angered the nurses to take such a move.

But Mr. Danso pointed out that they were yet to receive the apology saying “As we speak, we have not seen any apology from Dr. Dordoye.”

Nature of strike 

Giving a detailed description on the nature of the strike, an Administrator at the hospital, Mr. Godwin Pongo, said: “They are on sit down strike with respect to out patient services. Only emergency cases are being attended to, meaning patients that come for review are not being attended to, but those that are aggressive are being attended to.”

“According to their road-map, by Sunday if they do not hear anything from the sector minister, then they will declare a total strike from Monday, meaning they will not attend to patients that are on admission,” he added.

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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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The 2017 induction ceremonies for the over 18,000 nurse Assistants, nurses and midwives who qualified in 2016 across the regions in Ghana have been zoned into four groups.

[contextly_sidebar id=”9NvGJJR3DShyVwmXPctojMAHVU2e8ZHM”]The group consisting of Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions, was conducted in Bolgatanga, the regional capital of the Upper East.

Inducting the nurses into the profession, the Registrar of the Council, Felix Nyante, urged them to abide by their job description, legal and ethical responsibilities.

The Registrar also urged them to use the laid down channels in addressing their grievances instead of resorting to demonstrations and strikes.

Dr. Vida Yakong, the Head of the Department of Midwifery at the University for Development Studies, expressed regret that in spite of the wealth of knowledge, skills and attitudes acquired by the nurses at the health training institutions, majority of them do not put them into use to help improve upon the health status of clients.

She attributed the problem to lack of equipment, supplies and heavy workload among others.

“Nurses dispense comfort, compassion and care without even a prescription. So you realize that it does not matter the type of qualification that you have, but what matters is that our main focus remains the same”, Dr Yakong said.

She said although the expectations of the profession were huge, nurses should let the core values of their profession, which calls for serving humanity to be their binding principle.

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Source: GNA

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This adds up to the over 16,000 nurses already admitted into the health sector.

[contextly_sidebar id=”ZlhCHokIpTSJK7jxriVhVaRfoHlySbpY”]“So far this year, we have employed just about sixteen thousand of these nurses who were sitting home. In the course of this week, we got financial clearance to add two hundred and thirty-six more,” he said.

In a bid to help nurses who were trained in private health institutions, the Minister confirmed that a request had been sent to the Ministry of Finance for financial clearance.

“We have [sent a] request to Finance to enable us also recruit some of those sitting at home who did their training in private schools, and God willing if we get that one in the course of the next months left for the year to end, we will continue to recruit them,” he noted.

Speaking to Citi News, Kwaku Agyeman Manu said provisions have been made in the next budget for the recruitment of trainees from private nursing schools.

“If we are not able to do that, come next year we have done adequate budgetary allocations, all of them will come on board,” the Minister of Health explained.

Quota system to limit unemployed nurses

The government’s introduction of a quota admission system for nursing trainee schools, was to help improve the quality of nurses in the country, according to the Ministry of Health.

The Ministry believes this will allow training institutions to produce nurses to meet the demands of the health sector, thus reducing unemployment.

Speaking to Citi News on the new development, the Public Relations Officer of the Health Ministry, Robert Cudjoe, explained the impact the quota system will have on the nursing training schools.

“Some schools that were taking less last year are taking more, and some that were taking more are now taking less, simply because we did an analysis and came to the conclusion that some schools don’t have the facilities to admit the number that they have been recruiting and that is compromising quality,” he said.

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This according to the council was part of measures to get Nurses and Midwives deliver to expectation.

The new online system is to ease the laborious processes associated with the manual system, as well as strengthen the capacity of the council.

The council has also introduced a therapeutic communication course to aid in an effective and efficient healthcare delivery in the country.

Registrar of the Council, Felix Nyante made the announcement at the Council’s 2017 mid-year review at Nsuta in the Ashanti region on the theme “Peak Performance”.

He said the Dutch Government has provided grant to the Council to revamp its examination processes and procedures.

Mr Nyante indicated that the grant is also to support the Council to strengthen its organizational capacity to conduct efficient, effective and credible licensing examination.

He noted the Council wants to focus on ICT deployment to accelerate on performance.

“Ghanaians should expect Nurses and Midwives delivering up to their expectations. So that when they go to the hospital, the attitude of Nurses towards them alone will create a therapeutic environment for them to get healed and the not the usual prescriptions and giving medication”.

Chief Director at the Ministry of Health, Dr Afisah Zakariah, commended the Council for its effort to introduce the online licensing examination next year.

According to her, the council has attained top achievement in its operation with the 2015 to 2019 strategic objective.

She attributed the council’s achievement to good leadership and staff commitment to excellence.
Dr Zakariah indicated that the online examination will ease the laborious processes experienced in the old manual system and will also go a long way to make licensing examination in Ghana trustworthy.

She charged the council to be fully decentralized to enable nurses and midwives carry out their engagements at the council’s regional office without traveling to Accra.

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By: Hafiz Tijani/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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They say their action is to impress upon the government to immediately employ them after years of being jobless.

[contextly_sidebar id=”mUHwWwl1UVJcax3eeWeBD0uYgjgyxR3F”]The group, made up of Registered Community Nurses, Registered General Nurses, Registered Mental Health Nurses and Registered Midwives is accusing the Ministry of neglect and bad faith in the handling their financial clearance for employment.

It would be recalled that eight different groups of nurses have picketed at the premises of the health ministry this year alone, to demand financial clearance and onward posting.

The spokesperson for the Coalition of Unemployed Bonded Nurses, Samuel Yeboah in a Citi News interview said, they will be compelled to besiege the ministry if their concerns are not addressed.

“As soon as you complete school you have the exact day to start your service and as soon as you complete that, posting becomes an issue. We don’t want the situation where they will add us to our juniors and that will be being unemployed for a while year. Because what we know is that, when you complete your service within three months you should start working. We want the ministry to give us our clearance so that roughly by the end of this month, we’ll start working,” he said.

Various groups of trainee and trained nurses have in recent times protested against the government over similar issues of delayed posting.

Some have had to picket at the Ministry of Health for nights before securing their posting.

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By: Anas Seidu/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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According to them, the recruitment is a result of the protests they held at the Ministry of Health over their unemployment.

Solomon Yeboah, the president of the Coalition of Bonded Allied Health Professionals, who spoke to CitiNews in an interview stated that, “upon our agitation for financial clearance and going to sleep at the ministry, the ministry listened to our cries”

He further went on to state that, “most of our members have resumed work, some are also on cause processing their documents to start work from Nextweek. Everybody has been allocated to his or her agency.”

Some of them have been located under “Ghana Health Service, Mental Health Authority and the Christian Health Association of Ghana” he added.

Solomon Yeboah also mentioned “that everyone has started work and some of the agencies have called on their members to undergo medical screening and from there, they would be given their appointment letters.”

Prior to this development, a group of unemployed health professionals staged a protest at the Ministry of Health earlier this year to demand immediate employment.

You will be recruited soon – Health Minister to Nurses

The Minister for Health had assured the unemployed private nurses earlier this month that they would soon be recruited.

The Minister at a press conference stated that “his ministry has appealed to the Finance Minister to release funds to enable their clearance and posting which the Minister for Finance Ken Ofori Atta is currently working on.”

He complained about the constant picketing of the nurses at his ministry which he described as indiscipline and threatened to involve the security if persuasion fails.

The Minister also added that from next year, nurses would apply for jobs in the health sector on their own without any help from the government.

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By: Rita Mensah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The Minister at a press conference stated that “his ministry has appealed to the Finance Minister to release funds to enable their clearance and posting which the Minister for Finance Ken Ofori Atta is currently working on.”

[contextly_sidebar id=”FlYdc3pejNg2wq0Z98yJAX2AbJ0TFrAK”]He further complained about the constant picketing of the nurses at his ministry which he described as indiscipline and threatened to involve the security apparatus if persuasion fails.

Mr. Agyemang noted that government has recruited 14,566 nurses who graduated from 2012 to 2016.

The minister added that, nurses starting from next year will apply for jobs in the health sector without the assistance from the government.

Minister of information Mustapha Hamid, present at the press conference also appealed to the nurses to exercise patience.

The president for the Association Federick Baah however, responded positively to the proposal from the minister and promised to be patient with the minister while he works on the procedures for their recruitment.

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By: Gifty Tracy Aminu/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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