The Graduate Unemployed Nurses and Midwives Association (GUNMA) wing in Tamale in the Northern Region has staged a demonstration over the government’s failure to post them into the workforce after years of completion. The GUNMA is therefore calling on the government to clear the accumulation of nurses and midwives who completed their studies in 2020, 2021, and 2022.

The group further indicated that the Ministry of Finance failed to provide financial clearance for the posting of more than 75,000 of its members despite the successful completion of their Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) licensing exams.

The group also stressed that while qualified nurses and midwives remain unemployed, the government and its agencies, the Ministry of Health (MoH) and Ministry of Finance, overlooked them and employed unqualified personnel, such as senior high school graduates, who undergo minimal training to practice in healthcare.

The GUNMA claimed that despite the strenuous training that graduate nurses and midwives had and the major demand for healthcare workers nationwide, its members have been hugely ignored by the government , and unable to secure employment.

“The Nursing and Midwifery Council is mandated by the Health Professional Regulatory Act to secure, in the public’s interest, the highest training and practice for nurses and midwives in this country. If I have been trained and inducted and sit home for close to four years, where then lies their mandate?”
GUNMA

Moreover, the GUNMA argued that the government delays in paying the rotation allowances of its members. The association emphasized that nurses and midwives should not be made to work for more than a year before their allowance are paid as these nurses and midwives have financial commitment to deliver on.

The members of the association indicated that nurses are the backbone of every country. They asserted that their jobs are important to the public and that they should not be treated as badly as the government is currently doing.

The association indicated that it hopes that the public demonstration will through some light on the severity of the situation of its members and the potential implications it may have on healthcare delivery if their skills continue to be underutilized.

Exodus Of Ghanaian Nurses

Ironically, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has revealed that 3,688 nurses, have left the country in search of better opportunities outside of Ghana over the past three years and this occurrence raises concerns about the nation’s healthcare system.

Many of these healthcare professionals have cited unfavorable conditions of service in Ghana as a major contributing factor for their decision to seek greener pastures abroad.

Accordingly, the former Majority Leader in Parliament, Hon. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, emphasized the need for the government to consider increasing the remuneration of nurses as a means to address the growing number of nurses leaving the country during a Ministry of Health budget reading.

As the prospect for better working continue to look good for healthcare givers at the global stage, the country continues to lose its healthcare givers on a daily basis.

Addressing the issue, the former Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu stated that nurses and other health professionals continue to leave because the global demand for them are high. He stressed that brain drain is also a contributing factor as there are many who think that there are better economies that favor healthcare givers outside the shores of Ghana.

He assured the public of the government’s commitment to provide a lasting solution for the problem stressing that the Ministry of Health will enlist the help of the Ghana Health Service in solving the problem.

While the government continues to ignore the plights of nurses and midwives in the country, it is clear the government is not as committed to keep its qualified health professionals in the country as it stated that it is. It is unfathomable how the qualified nurses government is trying to keep in the country are being passed over to employ underqualified nurses instead.