Some nurses in Ghana are against moves by the government to revoke the bonding arrangement of nurses.
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Don't stop bonding arrangement - Nurses beg government
The Minister of Health Kwaku Agyemang Manu on Thursday described as irrelevant the government bonding of nurses.
Aggrieved nurses who were not posted earlier picketed at Flagstaff House
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“We have several nursing training schools – some private ones have been training nurses for us…they pay their own school fees. So the value of bonding doesn’t seem to be real now,” he told Accra-based Citi FM.
His comments follow a statement by the Ministry that starting from 2017/2018 academic year, new entrant trainee nurses will not be mandated to serve a bond after completion of their training in government funded health institutions.
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But several of the nurses have told Pulse.com.gh that stopping the bonding arrangement would not be ideal for health service delivery in the country. Below are some of the responses.
Solomon is a bonded nurse
The important part of it all is that I know I am receiving allowance at the end of the day so if I’m being bonded I know that at the end of the day I’m going to get some work to do after I am done with my training. So if they are not going to bond me and there is something that after I am done with my training the government can decide to give me a work or I would have to go round looking for a job to do. So I believe it’s not going to happen.
But as time is going on, the number of nurses that we are training is increasing so I believe that if we are being bonded, we know we have a contract with the government and at the end of the day the government is going to take us into the system. And we are not going to suffer going around because you know the jobs are not available. The government would be in a better position to amend certain things and put us where we are supposed to be. Else we will go back to this era where nurses have to be taken out of the country to go and work and there will be shortage of nurses. Therefore I believe that if the government should bond us, it is going to help us.
Dorcas is a nurse at Ridge Hospital
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Well it [bonding] is a good thing in a way that students can get allowance to sustain themselves in school because most people depend on the allowance to pay their fees so if this allowance is to be removed it means that it will affect people. But on the other way round, if they are not being bonded, if only the students are able to take care of themselves, then after schooling that’s where the benefit comes from...that one you can travel and work anywhere.
Frederick, a nurse from the Accra Psychiatric hospital
I think at the time they instituted this policy most of the nurses right after school will just leave the country, a mass exodus of nurses. So it got to a time that nurses were really scarce in the country so that came to check that. But if the government thinks now it has a lot of nurses and for that matter it won’t bond anybody. I’m sure there will be these repercussions in the near future because these days there are others who don’t leave the country, but leave the nursing profession. So at the end of the day we would have the numbers in the country alright but when you go to the field, there will be nobody there to work.
Franklin is a nurse in the Volta region
It [bonding] is a very good thing. At the end of the day, even though you have done your national service, you have served your nation at least you need to be on the field to gain some experience and you know nursing you gain more experience while you are on the job.
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