TRAINEE NURSES AND MIDWIVES EXASPERATED WITH THE DELAY IN THE PAYMENT OF RIGHTFUL TRAINING ALLOWANCES
The National Executive Board (NEB) of the Ghana Nurse and Midwife Trainees? Association (GNMTA) (albeit acknowledged receipt of chronic unofficial reassurances from the government in response to our petitions to pay continuing trainees allowances in full) reckons it very unfair on the part of government to put innocent continuing students through this torture of delayance to fulfil its commitment.
Student nurses and midwives were made to sign a bond with the government as part of their admission processes to be sponsored throughout their training with the condition of serving the nation for at least a period five years after training. Unfortunately however, the government is breeching its part of the contract by delaying the long overdue allowances of students especially level 200 hence igniting anxiety, anguish and financial turbulence amongst students with respect to the high cost of training as far as huge school fees, cost of accommodation for vacation clinical experiences, transportation, feeding, stationeries, among others are concern.
Below are some of the harms the delayance is causing students:
Most students are unable to pay the huge fees per semester since they do not have any time to work for money because they spend all their vacation period in various hospitals hence depending on the allowance. This is leading to drop outs and other academic disproportions.Final year Health Assistant and Community nursing trainees (who will be completing their two- year course very soon) are being denied registration for the final licensure examination due to inability of most of them to pay fees in full. Other trainees in various institutions are being sent home for same cause. Sadly, some of these students cater for themselves.Unfortunately, some of these poor trainees are now left with no option than to resort to inappropriate and incongruous means of generating money to survive this unexpected financial turbulence from government. Where is Nursing profession heading towards?Students who borrowed monies to cater for themselves with the hope of refunding with the allowance are now being threatened to be arrested for the delay. What will they do next if families are unable to settle such debt?Immediate graduates from Seikwa HATS (who have also not received their long overdue allowances) are being denied of their postings to their place of work because the government has failed to release the clearance letters to various schools to authenticate them worthy of postings.Trainees are losing trust in their leaders for ceaseless reassurances and are aggressive and ready to resort to other forms of demand for their rightful possessions.The rights of student nurses and midwives are now being abused just because they are demanding for their rightful allowances. Innocent students from Mampong Midwifery were abused simply because they ceased an opportunity to display their state of adversity peacefully to the president of this country for intervention.
We are hereby challenging the government and other stakeholders to speed up work and take the understated recommendations and notifications into stern consideration, thus treating them as a matter of urgency to prevent unforeseen circumstances:
l Government and appropriate stakeholders should take the responsibility to quickly direct Principals of all affected schools to kindly allow these poor students to at least pay for only the registration fees for the licensure examination to warrant them registration to write the final examination so that the arrears will be paid after receiving the allowances but before receiving their certificate since the harm is being caused by government and not students.
l Government should release all clearance letters to the various institutions as soon as possible to enable the schools submit the completed allowance forms for further processing and to also accredit graduates of Seikwa HATS to be posted to their work places. How do government expect these students to survive?
l Payment of level 200 allowances should commence NOT LATER THAN 30TH JUNE, 2014 since that is the limit of students and leaders as far as endurance is concern.
l We would also like to remind the government that the decision of retaining and paying the continuing students allowances in full was made at the all-stakeholders meeting with the Minister of Health, at the Ministry of Health and on Friday, 31st of January, 2014. Hence words must be metamorphosed into actions instead of noxious reassurances.
The NEB of GNMTA on behalf of all students in the country will like to notify and emphasize that it is ever prepared and will not hesitate to declare a NATIONWIDE STRIKE ACTION coupled with MASSIVE NATIONWIDE DEMONSTRATION in demand for its rightful possessions if the above ULTIMATUM expires without positive feedback. This will mean students will have to quit working at the various hospitals in the country, halt lectures and match to the various authorities in an organized manner since a hungry man is an angry man. Petitions have been sent to both the Health and Finance Ministry severally yet to no avail but are rather exploiting our patience and humility to delay delivery.
We hope and count on the support of other bodies and the public that understand our plights as trainee nurses and midwives and the need for government to be stimulated to do the right thing at the right time.
LONG LIVE GNMTA!!
LONG LIVE GHANA!!
Thank you.
EMMANUEL GEYEVO
NATIONAL PRESIDENT
Cc: THE HONOURABLE MINISTER
MINISTER OF HEALTH ? ACCRA
THE HONOURABLE MINISTER
MINISTER OF FINANCE ? ACCRA
THE DIRECTOR HRDH
MINISTRY OF HEALTH ? ACCRA
THE NATIONAL PRESIDENT
GHANA REGISTERED NURSES ASSOCIATION (GRNA) ? ACCRA
THE CHIEF NURSING OFFICER (CNO)
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
THE NATIONAL PRESIDENT
CONFERENCE OF HEAD OF HEALTH TRAINING INSTITUTION (COHHETI)
ACCRA
ALL ZONAL AND LOCAL PRESIDENT OF GNMTA
THROUGHOUT GHANA
HEADS OF ALL HEALTH STUDENTS ASSOCIATIONS IN GHANA
