- The Ghana Nurses and Midwives Association has called on the government to allocate five percent of the country’s oil revenues to the health sector.
- He said the funds would address serious challenges facing the country’s health sector.
- GRNMA also urged the government to maintain training allowances for nurses as a reward for their immense contribution to hospitals.
The Ghana Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) has called on government to allocate five percent of the country’s oil revenue to the health sector.
According to the association’s president, Dr Tengkorang Tum, the investment will greatly benefit the country’s ailing health sector by addressing infrastructure challenges.
Source: Getty Images
He said it would also address gaps in disease control and manpower availability.
He noted that the current situation is already so dire that without the necessary funding in this sector, the country risks plunging into a major health crisis.
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in JoyNews InterviewDr Tengkorang Tum said the government needed to take bold decisions to prevent further corruption in the health sector.
He also called on the government to maintain the nursing training allowance.
There has been debate about whether nursing training allowances and teacher training allowances should be maintained in the future.
Some experts have suggested the allowance should be eliminated and students should be placed into student loan programs.
But Dr Thum said research showed the allowance was a form of compensation for student nurses, who handle about 40 percent of a hospital’s nurses’ workload.
He explained that without these allowances, nursing students would have to provide unpaid work in hospitals, which is unfair.
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Making nursing training degree-based only – GRNMA
Earlier, the Ghana Nurses and Midwives Association had called for the discontinuation of certificate and diploma nursing programmes to improve nursing training and education in the country.
GMA proposes To ensure a highly skilled and specialised nursing workforce, all certificate and diploma courses will be replaced with degree courses.
Dr Tengkorang Tum argued that the current system is strange and does not adequately address the challenges in the country’s health sector.
He noted that it was puzzling that there were three different entry levels into the nursing and midwifery profession.
He said the situation has led to auxiliary nurses making up an overwhelming proportion of the workforce in the health sector, around 60 percent.
He believes the situation needs to be reversed so that nurses with degrees make up the majority.
Nurses in training complain about inadequate allowances
YEN.com.gh It was reported that the Union of Concerned Nurse and Midwife Trainees had raised further concerns about the allowances they should be paid.
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177 million cedis have been provided to resettle the trainees but the organisation said more funds were needed.
One of the coordinators of the group, Robert Agbeti, pointed out to YEN.com.gh that the estimates may be lower than stated.
Source: YEN.com.gh