The nurses deserve a better deal

Today, we have returned to the issue of workers and strikes/demonstrations because of a demonstration by “newly employed” nurses of the country’s premier hospital, the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH).
At the hospital are three batches of junior nurses who have not been paid their salaries and allowances since their employment in January 2012, June/July 2012 and September/November 2012, respectively.

The nurses staged a demonstration against the authorities of the hospital and demanded a formal agreement with the hospital authorities on timelines for the payment of their arrears.

The nurses say their action was the result of their frustration after various petitions to the hospital authorities, the Ghana Registered Nurses Association, the ministries of Finance and Health, the National Labour Commission and the Speaker of Parliament.  This period has definitely been a long, patient wait, which many workers cannot endure.

The Daily Graphic is reliably informed that for the months that the nurses have not been paid, each of them is owed between GH¢29,000 and GH¢35,000, which put together is a colossal amount. That is why even though the ministries of Health and Finance are reported to have rather belatedly requested the hospital authorities to pay the arrears owed the nurses from their internally generated funds, the authorities say they have not got the capacity to pay, considering the total amount involved.

The hospital authorities have only offered to pay salaries starting from September but this does not appear to be acceptable to the junior nurses for obvious reasons.

While this is a very worrying situation, it may not be an isolated case as some other newly employed workers like teachers have to wait for months, or sometimes years, before they are paid their salaries.

The state should put in place a system under which documentation on newly employed workers is carried out within weeks of their employment to avoid a situation where fresh employees have to wait for long periods before receiving their pay package.

While we appeal to the nurses to remain calm, we also ask the relevant institutions to expedite action on processing documentation on new employees to avoid any future situations like the one being faced by the nurses.

Strikes or demonstrations by any group of workers are not a pleasant thing, more so when lives could be directly affected in the case of the nurses and other hospital staff. We hope that the hospital authorities will work on the needs of these junior nurses, many of whom have been surviving on the goodwill of friends, to prevent the situation getting out of hand.

The nation is yet to recover from the recent strike by doctors and pharmacists in the country, which had a big toll on KBTH. We cannot afford another full-blown strike at the premier hospital.  The consequences are usually not palatable for anyone.

To go without salary for even a single month is painful enough, but to have to wait for nearly two years without remuneration is a recipe for disaster. The nurses deserve a better deal.

Daily Graphic/Ghana