Over thirteen thousand community health nurses are up in arms against government for identifying them wrongly after re-naming them. According to them, unlike other category of nurses whose name change led to an upgrade, theirs has somewhat degraded their roles in the health sector. The nurses are unhappy that the Health Ministry now refers to them as nursing assistants instead of Community Health Nurses after completing their certificate programmes. At a press conference today [Monday], President of the Association, Esther Bamfo, said their intended action is to get government to heed to their demands.
The health workers in a statement lamented they are not given the appropriate certification after they complete a Ministry of Health sanctioned diploma course at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). “We know that SRM, talk of the Green Nurses use to be a certificate programme. When they were changing their names to RGM, they were given diploma certificates. Why is community Health Nursing changing it’s name and not sending us higher but drawing us back?”
They also claim they have to cater for the logistics they work with from their own pockets without any support from government.
“We have challenges with our promotion. Some have spent eight, eleven years, seven years, six years on the job and there is no promotion for them and no opportunity for them to progress. Even the logistics to work with are not there. “What we saw is that, about 90 percent of community health nurses have used their own pocket money to buy motorbikes. Fueling and servicing them on their own, and it is these same motorbikes that they go to work with and bring data for Ghana Health Service and mother Ghana to send to WHO, UNICEF to receive donor support yet we are being treated this way.”
– By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
- See more at: http://citifmonline.com/2016/05/30/over-13000-community-nurses-fight-for-recognition/#sthash.cGRpSJa3.dpuf
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