General News of Tuesday, 1 August 2017

Source: todaygh.com

MoH snubs aggrieved nurses

Mr. Emmanuel Nanor, said they are only waiting for a clearance letter from the authorities Mr. Emmanuel Nanor, said they are only waiting for a clearance letter from the authorities

Aggrieved coalition of graduate private nurses who picketed at the Ministry of Health (MoH) yesterday to express their disappointment with the government’s failure to employ them were given the shock of their lives.

This unfortunate incident, followed the decision by officials of MoH to shut their doors on the demonstrating nurses as they were prevented from seeing the authorities.

The nurses, who have graduated from various accredited nursing institutions, across the country for so many years have expressed their displeasure at the treatment meted out to them.

They fumed: “are we not Ghanaians; is it because we graduated from private institutions.”

These were some of the grievances of the aggrieved nurses whose only passion is to serve the country.

Speaking in an interview with Today, Secretary of the Coalition, Mr. Emmanuel Nanor, said they are only waiting for a clearance letter from the authorities, stating the date they will be posted.

“We wrote the same exams with the bonded nurses in the public institutions who have been posted. Every year we renew our pins to enable us practice, yet we have no source of income to keep up with this practice.”

“We have resolved to pass the night at the premises until they get the needed assurance that they will be posted,” they noted.

Responding to the protests of the aggrieved nurses, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Ministry of Health, Mr. Robert Cudjoe, said that his outfit has received a letter from the nurses and were waiting on the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to give them clearance before they can be employed.

He indicated that the Ministry of Health always sends separate list containing names of graduate nurses from both the public and the private universities to the Ministry of Finance, but “unfortunately when the postings started this year, the names of private nurses were not part.”

Denying the accusation that the Ministry of Health deliberately omitted their names from the list sent to the Ministry of Finance, the PRO said it was not obligatory for the government to employ graduate nurses from both the public and the private universities when they completed their courses.