The Nurse Educators’ Group (NEG), has announced a road map to withdraw its services from the various health training institutions across the country.
According to a release signed by the National Chairman, Bakinam Adamu, “the Group is compelled under the current economic hardships and the lukewarm attitude demonstrated by the Health Training Institutions Unit (HTIU) of the Ministry of Health,” towards their concerns.
This comes after NEG, a specialized group under Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association of Ghana, requested, through a communiqué on June 20, 2022, at the end of its 2022 Annual General Meeting held at Sunyani to the Ministry of Health, for a review of their allowances and other related matters.
The release listed some of their concerns as allowances on script marking, care study, research supervision, practical assessment, labour ward assessment, and invigilation.
The rest are field/clinical supervision, health talk supervision, research and book allowances.
It further stated that other related matters include; Review of the health training institutions 30% reservation of approved admission quotas to the Ministry, and scrapping of the 34% gross of the interview proceeds to be paid to the Ministry.
The rest are; Roadmap to the conversion of Health Training Institutions into a degree awarding and nursing forms should be sold by the various health training institutions but not the Ministry of Health.
NEG believes the proceeds of the sale of the forms could be used as Internally Generated Funds that various institutions can use to develop their infrastructure and human resource needs as they aspire to attain tertiary status.
“We are appalled at the attitude of the Ministry of Health relative to our call on the review of the 2015 approved allowances rates and other related matters after several reminders”, a portion of the release said, adding that some National Executives made a follow-up to the Ministry after their communiqué with the aim of a resolution but to no avail.
“No engagement has been made so far to kick-start the negotiations on the review of the proposed rates. The loud silence of the Ministry of Health is worrisome and leaves much to be desired of any Ministry that cares about its workers”.
The group said they can no longer bear the hardships and therefore reject the low rate allowances, as well as the inequalities in allowances paid in the various public health training institutions.
The Road Map to the withdrawal of some services is:
From 11th – 17th August, 2022 –Wearing of red arm/wrist bands in all health training institutions.
From 18th – 19th August, 2022 –Withdrawal of care-study supervision and conduct of mid-semester exams.
From 2nd September, 2022 – Withdrawal of classroom teaching and other services in all health training institutions.
The release, therefore, called on members to follow the road map religiously “until you hear otherwise from your leadership”.
Below is the full statement