Some unemployed graduate nurses demanding posting have returned to the Health Ministry to picket after they were dispersed by the police last night.
The protesting nurses were chanting “2020 we go show Nana” to convey their displeasure with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.
This is after over 200 of them on Monday picketed at the Ministry to mount pressure on the government to employ them.
According to them, several appeals to the Ministry to engage them after they completed school two years ago, have been unsuccessful.
Some of the aggrieved nurses vowed to remain there until their demands are met.
The nurses had been forcibly sacked from the Ministry premises by police, who said they would not allow the protesters to sleep there, and that their actions contravened the Public Order Act.
They subsequently accused the police of being insensitive to their plight, whilst others alleged that the police engaged in some acts of brutality.
“Yesterday [Monday], the police came and drove us away. We had to go to the TV3 premises and that was where we slept… There were two ladies. One of them had a broken leg. We were trying to help her. The way they were beating us, it as if we don’t matter in the country,” the nurses complained.
“We all went to government schools. See the private nurses, they are being posted… when we write our application to the private institutions, they will not take us because they will tell us we will be posted [by the government] and leave them,” the nurses further complained.
No money for clearance
In response to the nurses’ demands, a Deputy Minister of Health, Tina Mensah, attributed government’s inability to post them to lack of funds.
She indicated that the nurses will be posted as soon as they get clearance from the Finance Ministry.
“We never had the clearance. When there is clearance in payment then you have to introduce the people, alert them and push them to do whatever they have to do. When the money is available you can clear them,” she said.
