Pay our national service allowances – Nurses, midwives to gov’t

Nurses and Midwives National Service Personnel has called on government to as a matter of urgency pay their five (5) months National service allowance arrears.

According to them, government has not paid them their national service allowances between April and August 2019 and efforts to get government to commence processes for the payment of their allowances have proven futile.

”Our press statement is issued as a result of the silence and ‘I don’t care attitude’ of government; Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service for allowing Rotation Nurses and Midwives to suffer for five (5) months without even giving us information on how we will get our Service Allowance paid as we do our rotation as a mandatory requirement for every Trained Nurse and Midwife which you may be very familiar with.” part of the statement reads.

Read The Full Statement Below: 

NATIONAL SERVICE PERSONNEL

FROM: CONCERNED ROTATION NURSES AND MIDWIVES

SUBJECT: NON-PAYMENT OF SERVICE ALLOWANCES

DATE: 24th SEPTEMBER, 2019.

Friends from the Media, kindly permit us to thank you on behalf of all Rotation Nurses and Midwives across Ghana.

Our press statement is issued as a result of the silence and ‘I don’t care attitude’ of government; Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service for allowing Rotation Nurses and Midwives to suffer for five (5) months without even giving us information on how we will get our Service Allowance paid as we do our rotation as a mandatory requirement for every Trained Nurse and Midwife which you may be very familiar with.

BACKGROUND

By way of a brief background to this service allowance; every Nurse or Midwife who have passed the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s Licensing Examination would have to do a one-year mandatory service to the nation before she/he could be employed.

As part of the National Service provisions, Personnel is entitled to enjoy service allowance every month, starting from the month of resumption of duty which in our case was in April.

For the period of five (5) months thus April to August 2019, that we have spent at our various health facilities across the country; selflessly rendering our service to the good people of Ghana,we have never received our monthly National Service Allowances with the unfortunate part of the story being that, the processes which will lead to the payment of the allowances have not even commenced at all.

We are still in limbo because, first of all, clearance has to be given by the Ministry of Finance which it has not done. Secondly, generation staff ID by Ministry of Health takes precedence from the Finance Ministry’s clearance.

The third procedure is Biometric registration from the Controller and Accountant General Department with the final process being the release of the allowances which is now a great issue of our predicament concern.

All these processes cannot be done within a day or two and government till date is not even saying anything in that regards, common re-assurance has not been given to us as to when these processes will commerce.

Some of us cannot even go to work or go late due to lack of transport fares, our feeding itself is problematic. Others have borrowed money from their friends for rent of accommodation, feeding, transportation, payment of utility bills and many more which the people are now on our necks demanding their money.

Nursing is A NOBLE PROFESSION, a profession of selflessness; but mind you; a hungry nurse is an angry nurse; and an angry nurse is a potential killer.

We demand that government should as a matter of urgency; commerce all processes that will ensure the safe release of our National Service Allowances.