Health Workers To Embark On Demo Over Unpaid Salaries

The aggrieved 2019 batch of Health Workers are threatening to embark on a demonstration if the government is unable to pay them their arrears since February 2022.

Speaking to Starr News, a member of the aggrieved 2019 batch of nurses, Benjamin Mooro stated that the Degree Nurses with their batch do not have a staff Identification Card to even talk about their biometric details captured in the system.

“So we are giving the government up to the end of the month. Because we cannot be hungry in the wards. The Diploma nurses started work in the month of March. During our National Service, we were given our Staff ID and we did our biometric.

“If our details have been processed to the Ministry and we are expecting the needful to be done but it is not yet done. So at the end of the month, we should hear from the Ministry about the progress made concerning the Staff ID of the Degree Nurses and the salary payment. If it is not done by the end of the month then we have no option but to organize ourselves across the country and head to the Ministry of Health in Accra.”

He continued: “We are starving in the ward because affording a three-square meal will be difficult for most of my colleagues. So somebody who is not getting food if that person gets to the ward will he/she have a sound mind to attend to a patient.”

According to the aggrieved nurses, the situation is negatively impacting their work in all aspects.

Mr. Mooro said they have reached out to the authorities such as Ghana Registered Nurses Association among others who have advised them on how to deal with the situation.

“They told us to make enquiries or we should make letters available and forward them to the regional health directorates across the country which we’ve done. They also told us to make a follow-up on them which we did. The team keeps telling us that they are working on it.

He said the responses that “we are working on it, it is only God who knows when they will be done. We have made follow-ups. We are tired and frustrated.”