The Coalition of Rotation Nurses and Midwives (CRNM) has threatened to embark on a nationwide demonstration and withdrawal of services if government does not pay its members their service allowances by October 31.
In a February 11, 2018 letter with Reference number; HRHD/FC/18/07, the Health Ministry wrote to the Finance Ministry’s Director of Budget requesting for sealed verification of some 8042 Diploma Nurses and Midwives for financial clearance to do their mandatory national service.
In the said letter, the Health Ministry indicated that the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) had submitted a list of professional health trainees who graduated in 2017 and were about to do their one-year internship with various health facilities across the country.
By the MOU signed with the national service secretariat, the MOH is to pay their allowance.
“It will interest you to know, out of the total number of the list of schools submitted to the Ministry of Finance (MOF) a whopping number of 129 newly trained health professionals from Wa Nursing Training College (47 Nurses) and Yendi School of Hygiene (82 Nurses) were not given financial clearance, yet, were given the go-ahead by the Ministry of Health and national service scheme to start the mandatory internship, a development the Coalition believes is very disturbing for someone working and not knowing when exactly he or she will be paid his due allowances and several attempts to get answers to this unfortunate incident have proven futile with the excuse being that, ‘they are working on it’,” decried the CRNM in a statement Tuesday.
Describing the situation of its members as “unfortunate, disheartening and distressing,” the CRNM further noted that its members who were given financial clearance by the Finance Ministry “have been working for seven months now, but have not also been paid and neither the Health Ministry nor the Ministry of Finance is ready to get our concerns addressed.”
It, therefore, called on President Akufo-Addo among other health stakeholders to immediately intervene, warning “by October 31, 2018, if our members are not paid their service allowances in arrears, we will be left with no option than to embark on a nationwide demonstration and immediate withdrawal of our Services.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.FM
