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Gov’t doesn’t owe you jobs – Health Minister tells jobless nurses

The Health Minister said government is "not obligated" to provide for nurses who have graduated.

He said some nurses have sat home for three years waiting to be employed and so government is “not obligated” to compulsorily provide jobs for all unemployed nurses.

According to him, is difficult to understand why some nurses have decided to constantly picket the Ministry, adding that such a behaviour is unfair to him and his outfit.

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In recent months, the unemployed nurses across the country have been picketing the Health Ministry over government’s failure to provide them with jobs.

Others have also lamented the decision by government to enroll them onto the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO), saying it is a form of slavery.

Early this month, a group of unemployed male nurses took their protests to a whole new level when they decided to join the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) during their Unity Walk in the Upper East region.

They held placards with the inscriptions “You employed bonded nurses but Nana wants to make us zoom nurses” and “You were honest to us but Nana deceived us and failed to pay us our allowance” to drum home their plights.

However, responding to the series of picketing by the unemployed nurses, the Health Minister said the fact that some nurses have completed school does not mean government is obligated to provide them with jobs.

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“I don’t understand what is happening. You sit home for how many years; some of them since 2012. There was a government that had put embargo on even recruiting you people. Last year we lifted it and recruited 17000 and you come picketing, forcing me to do what is not doable,” Mr. Agyeman-Manu told Accra-based Starr FM.

He added: “The fact that you have finished school does not mean that compulsorily government should by all means put you there. Some finished during the NDC time, sat home for three to four years, we are looking at them first.

“Now 2016/2017, you finished school, finished National Service in two months your picketing for a job. Is that fair to me?”

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