Don’t be in a rush to stop bonding nurses – Labour Expert advises gov’t

A Labour Expert Y.B Amponsah has urged the Akufo Addo led-government not to hasten in revoking the bonding arrangement between trainee nurses and the government of Ghana.

Deputy Minister of Health, Tina Mensah in the wake of protest by unposted midwives and psychiatric nurses earlier this week, revealed government’s intention.

The nurses numbering over 900 slept at the compound of the Ministry of Health on Monday to press home their demand.

They accused government of playing politics with their recruitment, alluding that the Vice President’s claim that all nurses awaiting financial clearance had been cleared and posted by the government within their first 100 days is untrue.

The Deputy Minister who’s also MP for Weija-Gbawe said the bonding law must be reviewed in order to take the pressure off government.

“The ministry is looking to review this bonding, we are considering that because coming to do all these things here… a lot of private schools are also into the training of nurses and everybody is training because they know that when you finish you are bonded for someone to get you a job.

“So the enrollment and the numbers are just increasing everywhere; after all you may not need the numbers at the same time so you must know the limit and how many you need at a particular time,” she said.

But Mr Y.B Amponsah in an interview with Kasapa News, stated that if government should rush in revoking the bonding arrangement the move will be counter-productive.

“This bonding arrangement was introduced by government years ago when we had a less nurse population, in as much as there are now many private nursing institutions, I’m not sure we churn out enough nurses annually. Government must take its time and ensure that there are adequate number of nurses required to man our hospitals before it revokes the bond.”

He added: “I’ve heard this government saying it will restore nurses’ allowance so why do you restore the allowance and revoke the bond, if you’ll revoke the bond, then there’s no need for restoration of allowance.”