The Graduate Unemployed Nurses and Midwives Association(GUNMA) in the Ashanti Region has scheduled a protest on Monday, April 8, 2024, to express their displeasure with the government’s failure to provide financial clearance to secure permanent employment.
The group claimed they were facing significant livelihood challenges due to the government’s failure to post them.
According to the group, the protest has become necessary to draw the government’s attention to the plight of unemployed graduate nurses and midwives.
In an interview, the organizer of the group, Richard Kusi, anticipated a massive turnout during the protest.
“We have been in the house for four years and have done a series of follow-ups at the Ministries of Health and Finance, but we are yet to get a response…We met the Ashanti Regional Police Command, and the clearance has been given, and so we want all our members to come out and join this campaign,” Kusi stated.
“We just want to get the government to hear our cry. Maybe they haven’t heard, so we started the protest at the Center for National Culture and ended at the Regional Coordinating Council. Then, we present a petition to the minister as we pursue our case,” he added.
It will be recalled that recently, the Graduate Unemployed Nurses and Midwives Association(GUNMA) accused the Ministry of Health of employing illegal means to assign jobs to its members.
The group alleged that the Health Ministry often charges additional fees for posting to be done successfully.
“Some of us are being ejected from our homes because we are not being able to pay our rent. Some of us are sick. Some of us have different financial burdens. We have done a lot of things, but nobody, nothing is coming out of it.
“Any day, any time you go to the ministries, what they tell you is, ‘go, soon it will come’. Wedon’tt know how soon this is coming. What is worse in the matter is, that some of our colleagues are being posted underground. You ask them, and they will tell you I had a colleague who took me GH¢5,000, GH¢6,000, GH¢7,000 to get me this posting”” the general secretary of the association, Atta Asante, noted.