Some 108 bonded Registered Diploma Community Nurses have called on the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, and the Registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council to provide them with jobs or “we would be forced to speak the language that the Ministry and government understand to demand what is rightfully ours”.
The nurses said their names were omitted from this year’s national postings by the Ministry of Health on 7 July, 2017 and have since remained unemployed three months after their colleagues were posted.
The group, in a statement said, “We are getting tired of the word of assurance, and life at home as professionally trained registered community health nurses is becoming very difficult and unbearable for us day in and out.”
The nurses questioned why they have to remain jobless while their colleagues, with whom they all completed training the same year, wrote the same exams, have begun work while they remain jobless.
The nurses further argued that it is not their fault that an error occurred during the postings for which reason their names were eliminated and “do not want to start believing that our long silence and obedience to authorities for them to rectify the alleged error and post us is being considered as our weaknesses, or better still it is something intentional just for them to delay our clearance and postings”.
They quizzed: “The questions we are pushed to ask is that did we in any way err by becoming bonded registered community health nurses? Why is it that we are always forced to keep to our promises and side of the bond but when it is the turn of the government, what we hear are excuses and stories? Why should all categories of nurses and midwives be cleared and posted with the exception of registered community health nurses?”
The group said they will no longer accept any excuse from the Health Ministry to further delay their clearance and postings and “would be forced to speak the language that the Ministry and government understand to demand what is rightfully ours”, if their demand is not met soon.
