Ashanti regional health director fumes over govt delay in employing trainee nurses
The Ashanti Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Emmanuel Tenkorang, has expressed his displeasure with the government’s reluctance to employ trained nurses.
According to Dr Tenkorang, the current unemployment of trained nurses across the country depicts a disconnect between political leadership and healthcare needs.
His comment follows the recent series of protests by trained nurses demanding clearance for posting.
“If you need them, those you’ve trained, you will employ them,” Dr. Tenkorang stated, emphasising that the failure to employ nurses from the 2020, 2021, and 2023 cohorts is a clear sign of political neglect.
“If you train a nurse and keep the nurse in the house for three years, the nurse will never return as a good nurse. Because you will eventually become rusty, you are doing a great disservice to yourself. If you are committed, then you will be committed to the people”.
The health director who was speaking at the launch of the 2024 Regional Nurses and Midwives Week Celebration at Ejisu on Thursday (30 May), urged the leadership of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRMNA) to take a proactive stance in advocating for better conditions of service and consistent employment opportunities for their members.
“The association is supposed to do this, so we changed the service condition. If the system is unstable, it cannot be resilient. If we can build a resilient system, we will have to provide an environment so that people will stay and work throughout their lives, which is what others are doing,” he noted.
The ministry also promised that nurses will be paid their allowances in due course of time.
The remarks from the Ministry of Health stemmed from similar demonstrations organized jointly by the rotational nurses, the midwifery association, and a group of unemployed nurses over unpaid allowances and unemployment concerns for months now, with the major one on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, where the protesters defied the heavy rains to express their grievances.