Ghana to review policy on reintegration of returnee nurses

A stakeholders’ meeting has been scheduled for the first week of September for the review of a policy on the reintegration of Ghanaian nurses who went to seek greener pastures outside the country into the Ghana Health Services (GHS).

The new policy is expected to resolve the conflict of returnee nurses who after working outside and acquiring new experiences and qualifications were being made to start from the position they left when they were in the GHS.

Mrs. Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo, Secretary of the Ghana Registered Nurses Association (GRNA), said this at a durbar in Koforidua as part of the Eastern Regional tour by the national executive of the Association.

Mr. Kwaku Asante- Krobea, National President of the GRNA, said the Association had established an emigration desk to help nurses who want to migrate from the country to work outside and also for nurses who want to emigrate to work in Ghana. He advised nurses who had distortions in their salaries to report to the Association.

Mr. Asante-Krobea said the government had paid nurses all their arrears with regard to the migration onto the Single Spine Salary Structure and payment of the arrears in relation to the 18% salary increase for public servants is expected at the end of September.

Mr. Asante-Krobea said nurses would start receiving their correct salaries in October, and that the GRNA was working in collaboration with other Health Workers’ groups to establish the second tier pension scheme to enable nurses going on retirement from 2015 to receive lump sum of money for their development, while they receive their monthly pension.

Mrs. Comfort Adika, immediate past Second Vice President of the Association, said the Management of the Nurses Fund was finding it difficult to send out individual accounts, because several attempts to collect data of individual nurses had not been successful.