The Ghana Nurses and Midwives Trainees Association has strongly kicked against moves by government to cede the supervision of nursing and health training institutions in the country to the Ministry of Education.
President John Mahama last Thursday revealed that he has endorsed a proposal that will allow the Ministry of Education to supervise all nursing and health training institutions in the country, explaining that it will reduce the unemployment rate of nurses.
But speaking to Citi News, President of the Ghana Nurses and Midwives Trainees Association, Godwin Asabire Akazee said they will embark on a series of demonstration if the government goes ahead to implement the decision.
“The reason why I said we are going to reject the decision is that, the President said there are proposals on his table asking that he should put all training institutions under the Ministry of Education and he is going to approve it. We are rejecting it because that wouldn’t solve the unemployment problem.”
According to Mr. Akazee, the President’s argument that putting the health institutions under the Ministry of Education to “streamline the rate at which the nurses and midwives are being churned out from unaccredited institutions” won’t yield positive results.
“The question we ask ourselves is, if you happen to place all the health training institutions under the Ministry of Education and after they have been trained, is the Ministry of Education going to employ them? If you have realized that there are unaccredited institutions that are producing nurses, I think that should be the work of the National Accreditation Board. The Ministry of Health is better placed to train health care professionals so if the need arises and we need to demonstrate we will surely do,” he added.
Unemployed nurses demonstrate
In recent times, trained nurses and midwives have demonstrated against government for failing to employ them after the completion of their training and mandated national service.
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin