{"id":360821,"date":"2017-10-10T17:08:23","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T17:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=360821"},"modified":"2017-10-10T17:08:23","modified_gmt":"2017-10-10T17:08:23","slug":"trainee-nurses-to-receive-ghc400-in-restored-allowances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/10\/trainee-nurses-to-receive-ghc400-in-restored-allowances\/","title":{"rendered":"Trainee nurses to receive GHc400 in restored allowances"},"content":{"rendered":"
The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has stated that\u00a0for the 2017\/2018 academic year, effective\u00a0September,\u00a02017, fifty-eight thousand health trainees, comprising nurses and midwives, will be paid their allowance of four hundred Ghana cedis (GH\u00a2400.00) per person, for each of the ten months of the academic year.<\/p>\n
The President was speaking at the Sunyani Nursing and Midwifery Training College on Tuesday, 10th September, at a ceremony to mark the restoration of the nursing and midwifery training allowances.<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernment will be spending a total of GH\u00a2232,000,000 for this academic year. The E-Zwich platform will be used to effect payment, as it will ensure convenience, prompt payment, and accountability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n Nana Addo dismissed claims that the decision taken to restore the allowances, which was a main campaign promise of the\u00a0New Patriotic Party (NPP), was mere political rhetoric, campaign talk, and added that\u00a0wasn’t meant to deceive nursing trainees in order to get their votes.<\/p>\n According to President Akufo-Addo, \u201cit was much more than that. We believed, and still believe, that Ghana needs all the nurses and healthcare workers she can get, if the nation is to have a solid, world-class healthcare system, and we think it necessary to provide the relevant incentives to make that possible.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Bemoaning the cancellation of the allowances, in 2014, by the government of the former President John Dramani Mahama, President Akufo-Addo noted that, this singular action brought untold hardships to the thousands of nurses and midwives in the country, who depended on it for their studies and for their welfare.<\/p>\n The cancellation of the stipend, according to the President, had left many trainee nurses demotivated and demoralized.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe New Patriotic Party and I heard your cry, and assured you of the restoration of these allowances, if we won the election. By the grace of God, and by the generosity and trust of the Ghanaian people, I am here, today, as President of the Republic, ready to fulfill the pledge we made to you,\u201d he said, to a rousing applause from the packed auditorium of the school.<\/p>\n The President continued, \u201cTo the professional cynics and skeptics, those who have made an industry out of constantly asking \u2018is this policy sustainable?\u2019, I wish to assure them that, with the proper management of our public finances, the nation\u2019s budget can accommodate such an amount.\u201d<\/p>\n The implementation of the Free SHS policy, on 12th September, 2017, he added, should be an indicator of the fact that leadership is about choices.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI have chosen to invest in the education and in the future of our young men and women, and I will use the blessings the Almighty has so amply bestowed on us to this end,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The payment of the allowances, the President noted, would also not have been possible without the prudent management of the economy.<\/p>\n NHIS, Employment of nurses<\/strong><\/p>\n The President explained that, it is the judicious application of resources that is heralding the revival of the National Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which has led to the payment of GH\u00a2560 million out of the GH\u00a21.2 billion debt inherited from the Mahama administration, which was strangling the NHIS.<\/p>\n Government, he added, is committed to paying the balance within the next 12 months, indicating that \u201cin the meantime, payments to service providers in the NHIS are now current, with no arrears being built up.\u201d<\/p>\n