Health Ministry’s claim it owes us allowances for only three months bizarre – Trainee nurses

The Ghana Nurses and Midwife Trainees’ Association has described the Ministry of Health’s claims that it owes members of the Ghana Nurse-Midwife Trainees’ Association only three months’ worth of allowances as bizarre and strange.

The Ministry of Health in a press statement signed by its Chief Director, Kwabena Boadu Oku-Afari, refuted claims that they owed members of GNMTA eight months allowance.

“The Ministry of Health wishes to assure the public that it does not owe any student to the tune of eight months as stated in the press release from GNMTA, neither has the Ministry stopped the payment of trainee allowances to students of government health training institutions.”

But according to the President of the association, Elijah Amful Adjei, the Ministry is shying away from the truth.

“I find the press release from the Ministry of Health to be bizarre, to be strange and in fact, it is incongruent and self-contradictory,” he said in an interview on Eyewitness News.

Amful Adjei stated that if students were made to pay full fees during the pandemic before writing exams then they deserve their allowances as well.

“They [Health Ministry] are saying that the academic calendar was disrupted because of COVID-19 and because of that they are going to pay us just three months allowance, but the question is, you knew all this but then during that time of COVID-19, you made students pay full fees before they had the opportunity to write their exams. So COVID-19 disrupted the academic calendar but not school fees?”

“During that time, we went to get data package for students because we knew that students were using their own data to access the online classes, and till now we haven’t received any response from them. Also, those who completed last year are owed a month’s allowance, but the Ministry is saying that they are owed for April, May, and June. So this will actually give you a clear picture that they are trying to be defensive as they’re even confused as to the number of months that they owe us.”