Patients plead for striking nurses to return as Atebubu Hospital operates at half capacity

Correspondence from Bono East Region

Patients who visited the Atebubu Municipal Hospital in the Atebubu Amantin Municipality of the Bono East region are pleading for the return of striking health personnel.

The patients disclosed that even though the hospital through its ingenuity is still rendering services to the public, there are fears that the absence of the striking health personnel will have some dire consequences in the coming days.

Some of them who spoke to GhanaWeb right after receiving medical attention praised management of the hospital for prioritising human life.

They, however, appealed to the government to call the striking health workers to the negotiable as a matter of urgency and meet the workers halfway as human lives cannot be sacrificed for other considerations.

Madam Yaa Sarah who had visited the hospital to seek medical attention revealed that despite hearing the news that some health personnel were on strike, she was duly attended to.

“I came in sick but I have been attended to and you can even see my drugs with me. I will like to plead with the government to meet the nurses so that they can come back and attend to us”.

When Ghanaweb visited the hospital, it was detected that even though the Outpatient Department was not as crowd it used to be, the few patients who were in the queue were being attended to.

Further checks revealed that other departments like the pharmacy department, records, laboratory, and the ANC were also in operation with patients being attended to.

A staff of the hospital who refused to speak on record decried the situation the hospital finds itself but was quick to add that that notwithstanding, management had put in place the right measures to ensure that the hospital does not come to a standstill.

Meanwhile, an 88-year-old woman from Parambo in the Pru East District in the Bono East Region, Uginlen Nabuja, has passed away at the emergency unit of the St. Mathias Catholic Hospital as a result of the strike.

The Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) together with its allied Associations, on September 21, 2020, declared a nationwide strike across the country.

They have accused government of failing to address concerns raised by the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association in the on-going negotiation on their conditions of service.