The Coalition of Unpaid Nurses and Midwives has expressed gratitude to the Ministry of Health for settling salary arrears of about 99% of its 13,000 members recruited in December 2024.
Speaking on the Orange Sunrise this morning, the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Health, Mr Anthony Goodman, said a delegation from the Coalition paid a courtesy visit to the Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, to express appreciation for the Ministry’s efforts to resolve the issue.
During the visit, Mr Anthony Goodman said the Minister of Health used the occasion to reiterate that nurses and midwives who do not report to post by August 20 will not get financial clearance.
“During the meeting, the minister told their colleagues who have been posted recently to report to post by 20th August or lose their financial clearance and job opportunity. So I am using this opportunity to inform all those who have been posted to various districts to go to these areas before the 20th”, Mr Goodman said.
Mr Anthony Goodman also added that the Ministry of Health was planning on reducing the number of students accepted into nursing training institutions
“If you are training 40,000 a year, with the problem we have come to meet, we have to reduce the numbers we have at home. Because if someone who completed school in 2021 is still at home and we are training more, we are not helping”, he said.
He explained that reducing the numbers would help the ministry increase the number of nurses it recruits.
Mr Anthony Goodman acknowledged that the 8000 nurses who had been recently recruited were a small portion of the number of nurses who are currently unemployed.
“If you have 107,000 professionals in the house and got financial clearance for 8000, obviously it is just a few people who will get in”, he stated.
He clarified that the recent recruitment for nurses was only for the 2021 group, adding that the ministry could not afford to use its entire budget for recruitment. The PRO also revealed that the Ministry of Health was working in collaboration with the finance ministry to replace nurses who had left the country to seek greener pastures.
