Editorial: How To Permanently Resolve Doctors, Nurses Strikes Going Forward (II)

Following the devastating impact the ongoing strike by the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) is having on the health sector, we used this column yesterday to make some suggestions to the government. In the said editorial being referenced, we suggested that the government should allot a quota for recruitments to the various security agencies to nurses.

We actually suggested that 40% of intended recruitments by the Police, Military, Ghana National Fire Service, Customs and Immigration should go to unemployed nurses who are willing to join these security agencies. The idea is to have nurses who will be designated as ‘reservists’ and can be called upon to perform national duties, should the GRNMA declare similar strike in future.

These nurses would go through the regular trainings organised by the Military, Police Immigration, Prisons and Fire Service, and will only be called upon to perform nursing duties in emergency situations, such as what we are experiencing now. As a matter of fact, there are thousands of nurses who have finished their courses and are looking up to the government for postings.

The government would, therefore, be using one stone to kill two birds if these nurses are recruited into the police and military among others. As we have already indicated, apart from performing their duties as service men and women, they can also support the health sector when the need arises.

The Chronicle made these suggestions not because the paper is against strikes, but the belligerent stance the leadership of the GRNMA has adopted at the time some patients have started losing their lives. Though the impact of the ongoing strike has not been felt much in Accra, due to the availability of Police, SSNIT and 37 Military hospitals, the same cannot be said about the rest of the regions.

The Chronicle, however, admits that allotting as much as 40% space in police, military and other security services solely to train nurses is not going to be easy if they are all degree holders. The security agencies have been structured in a pyramid form, with the junior ranks forming the base and only a few senior officers at the top.

If majority of the nurses being considered for recruitment are degree holders, it will pose a challenge because their promotions will be fast. This will lead to the unfortunate situation of packing senior officers on top of the pyramid and leaving the base that is supposed to do the actual work.

But our research has revealed that most of the Nursing Training Institutions are still offering Diploma courses. The security services can, therefore, recruit more of the diploma holders instead of their degree counterparts. If the current strength of nurses in the public sector is about 120,000 as we are being told, having the same number in all the security services should not be a difficult thing to do.

As we have repeatedly stated, the aim of these recruitments is to limit the impact any future strike by GRNMA will have on the health sector. We also believe that if the leadership of the nurses are aware that the government has ‘reservists’ serving in the army and police among others, who can step in to do their work, they will think twice before trying to hold the whole nation to ransom.

But having said this, we also think it is about time we, as a nation, sat down to discuss the issue of allowances paid to the public sector workers, including government appointees. If allowances of nurses and midwives alone is fleecing the tax payer of over GHS2 billion, one can imagine how much the state is spending on the whole public sector workers, who are drawing allowances from the state coffers every month.

The bulk of the taxes collected in every fiscal year is spent on these public sector workers who constitute a fraction of the entire 33 million population of Ghana. Doctors, nurses, teachers and university lecturers among a host of others, are demanding these huge allowances because they are aware that politicians are paying themselves five or more times than what they are demanding.

President Mahama, whilst campaigning to become president, promised to review perks enjoyed by Article 71 office holders, but nowadays he hardly talks about it. If a Senior High School Certificate holder goes into politics and is paid over and above what university professors earn, what do you expect the latter to also do? In our view, there must be a national conference to address some of these challenges that is instigating massive scramble for our scarce resources by a few Ghanaians working in the public sector.

Union Leaders instigating their members to make unreasonable financial demands on the government know that if the state of Ghana is their private company, they will not entertain such demands. We need to be realistic if we really want to develop this country.

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