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Nana Addo must sack 'incompetent' Health Minister - Unemployed nurses

The nurses numbering about 937 said since members completed their national service in August 2016, they had remained jobless

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According to the unemployed nurses, the minister lacks the skills or ability to head the health ministry.

The coalition also expressed its displeasure at government for its inability to employ its members after their national service in 2016.

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The nurses numbering about 937 said since members completed their national service in August 2016, they had remained jobless.

The health trainees who graduated between 2012 and 2016 and who also completed their training remained at home and want government to post them.

The coalition in statement said it had petitioned the Ministry of Health (MoH) several times on the matter but all had proved futile.

The nurses comprising psychiatry nurses and general nurses said it had met the health minister after its members picketed the MoH on 28 March, with the Minister urged the group’s leadership to give him two weeks to obtain clearance from the Finance Ministry for the posting of the nurses.

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The coalition said the grace period elapsed on Tuesday, April 11, 2017 and  the promise has not been fulfilled.

"The leadership and the group as a whole find it so disgusting and disheartening to sit and allow these agencies play with our future and for this reason, we are coming out in our numbers to fight for what is rightfully due us. We want to emphatically and without hesitation state that the Minister has failed us in our agreement and we, therefore, call on His Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana to fire him because he is not a man of his word and is also exhibiting gross incompetence at his ministry," the statement added.

The coalition said they will picket at the premises of the Ministry of Health on Monday April 24 with their mattresses, sponges, soaps, toothpaste, and brushes to sleep there for as long as it will take us to get cleared and posted.

The coalition noted that they received their PINs/licences as professional nurses in August 2016 which will be expiring in June 2017 and the Nurses and Midwifery Council (NMC) would expect them to pay for renewal, for which failure to do so within the stipulated time will attract a penalty.

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"How do we renew these PINs when we are left languishing in our homes?" the statement said.

The coalition noted that Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia had not been fair to Ghanaians by telling them that government had issued a clearance to recruit 11,000 nurses in its first 100 days in office.

According to them, the February 2015 batch of diploma nurses are still battling with unemployment.

However, the government has released the financial clearance for 11,000 health trainees and 181 doctors of the Ministry of Health (MoH) to facilitate processes for employment.

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Government has allocated GH¢252 million for the restoration of nurses and teacher trainees’ allowances.

These measures are aimed at improving the health delivery system in Ghana.

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