The Association of Nurses, Midwives, Physician Assistants (PA) and Certified Registered Anesthetists (CRAs) has suspended its strike. The three day old-strike which was called off today, 23th September, 2020 will have workers resume to work on Thursday, 24th September, 2020.
On Friday, 18th September, 2020 a restraining order was secured by the National Labour Commission. Closing their ear to the restraining order, the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) still went ahead with the strike, claiming it had not been properly served with the court document.
At a press conference, the President of GRNMA, Mrs. Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo iterated that, “yesterday, Tuesday, 22nd September, 2020, around 4:30pm, we received notice from the head office administrator that a court bailiff had formally and properly come to the office to serve the injunction on the GRNMA and its associates. Because of our respect for the court, we have decided to suspend our strike action with effect from Thursday, September 24, 2020, at 8am pending the outcome of our negotiations,” sources stated.
On Monday, 21st September, 2020 the Nurses, Midwives, Physician Assistants (PA) and Certified Registered Anesthetists (CRAs) withdrew their services because, the government failed to address their concerns which stated that, the government promised that allowances and insurance will be given to frontline workers as part of incentives in the fight against COVID-19.
According to GRNMA, negotiations were made with the government on several occasions to arrive at a mutual agreement but did not yield any positive result. This resulted in a strike that left many patients stranded nationwide because of the absence of health personnel.
The Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations requested that the nurses and midwives engaged in the strike should immediately call it off and avail themselves for negotiation to continue.
The Ministry of Health expressed hope that the impasse between the government and the striking nurses will be resolved after negotiation today, 23th September 2020.
The Deputy Health Minister, Dr. Benard Okoe Boye, was optimistic that a mutually beneficial decision will be made by all stakeholders at the end of the deliberations.
“As I said, we are positive because, when you put about nine items on the table and government directly goes for about seven of them, I think that it is a significant step to show that as much as possible, we want to support all the groups that are involved. We must also be frank to ourselves as a country that, it must not be every request that government will hold.”
Embarking on strikes is not new in the labour system of Ghana. Most of the reasons why health personnel lay down their tools is due to the unfavorable conditions they face as health workers.
It can be recalled that in May 2018, laboratory technicians embarked on a partial strike due to claims of salary discrepancies which had existed for about six years, after the introduction of the single spine pay policy.
On Monday, 10th September 2018, the Ghana Physician Assistants Association directed all physician assistants nationwide to withdraw all Out Patients Department (OPD) services. The members also laid down their tools to register their displeasure over salary discrepancies that existed within their profession.
These strikes come as a big blow to patients and pose a lot of challenges as operations come to a halt for these hospitals, leaving the patients stranded and frustrated.
Government always try to resolve their grievances and frustrations during the strike but, it is noticed that the grievances of the health personnel are never resolved permanently.
