Stay calm, Deputy Health Minister tells unemployed nurses

The Deputy Health Minister, Tina Mensah, has called on unemployed bonded registered nurses, to remain calm as the Ministry is working with appropriate bodies to recruit them in due course.

The Minister was yesterday addressing a group calling itself the Coalition of Unemployed Bonded Registered Nurses and Midwives, who picketed at the premises of the Ministry of Health (MOH) over the delay of posting clearance.

Mrs Mensah said the Ministry was resolute to ensure that all registered bonded nurses were employed without any delay and called on the group to halt the picketing to save their strengths for the job ahead of them.

The group is made up of 937 personnel, who completed Nursing and Midwifery Colleges in 2015 and have completed their mandatory one year national service but had still not been posted.

Mr Fuseini Haruna, the Secretary of the group, said for more than nine months after their service, they have not heard “any encouraging word” from the Health Ministry and the Ghana Health Service concerning their clearance, which would allow them to be posted, despite the series of attempts made to register their displeasure on the issue.

“We have petitioned the Minister of Health on several occasions, but all the time, he keeps on telling us the clearance will come out.

“Just three weeks ago, he assured us the clearance would be out few weeks later, but it did not come,” Mr Haruna said.

The Secretary denied claims that about 11,000 nurses had been given clearance for employment.

He explained that the 2015 batch of the registered bonded nurses were still in the house waiting for postings and described the development as “woeful” and called on the Minister of Health to act with immediacy, saying the nurses are starving.

Mr Haruna stated that the failure of government to address their concerns despite the “countless attempts” they made to express their plight compelled them to hold the picketing.

“We have threatened to hold this picketing several times. But anytime we try, they would calm us down and give us sweet words. Today, we will not listen to anything until they give us the clearance.

“They always tell us the clearance is with the Finance Ministry, but we don’t know how true that is. They should come and clear the air,” he added.

For more than four hours the group stayed on the premises agitating with heated songs chorusing their displeasure over the issue with some of them displaying sponges, towels, among other things, vowing not to go back home until their concern was addressed.