Mampong Nurses College register student nurses
The student nurses who were denied the right to register and write their licensure examination have been registered and are preparing to write the external examination.
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“We registered long ago. I think it was on June 2. I’m very happy because I have also been delivered of a baby and preparing to write the examination,” one of the students told the Daily Graphic.
According to her, although the experience was traumatic, she was glad she had registered to write the examination that would open the doors of medical facilities to her.
Lincensure examination
The licensure examination is an external examination organised by the Nurses and Midwifery Council and is the final examination, a pass in which ushers students into practice.
The registration of the students followed a directive from the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to the Mampong Nurses and Midwifery Training College (MNMTC) to ensure that three students who were barred from registering to write their licensure examination were allowed to write the examination.
A human rights lawyer, Mr Francis-Xavier Sosu, whose law firm, F-X Law & Associates, took up the issue and filed a petition for CHRAJ to intervene at the time told the Daily Graphic, “I want an immediate intervention to ensure that the students register and write their licensure examination.”
Background
The Daily Graphic of May 28, 2016 reported that three student nurses of the Mampong Nurses and Midwifery Training School in the Ashanti Region, including a married woman, had been denied the right to register to write their licensure examination because they were pregnant.
Although two of them had been delivered of their babies, the school authorities refused to allow them to write the examination because of a rule that had long been scrapped by the Ministry of Health.
The Daily Graphic also received similar complaints from the Agogo Nurses Training College where some students were compelled to defer their course because they were pregnant.
The examination is scheduled to be written in August this year and registration for it was closed on May 27, 2016, but there is room for late registration.
Mr Sosu described the incident as one that breached Article 12(1) and (2) of the 1992 Constitution and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
The convention provides the basis for realising equality between women and men by ensuring women's equal access to and equal opportunities in political and public life — including the right to vote and to stand for election — as well as education, health and employment.
The incident attracted the attention of the Minister of Children, Gender and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, who described the school’s decision as unconstitutional and discriminatory.
She also said the school’s decision flew in the face of a government policy to ensure that pregnancy did not become a barrier to the education of young women.