Information filtering in indicates that some hospitals in the country are forcing trainee nurses to pay as high as GH�800 before they engage them for practical attachment.
DAILY GUIDE gathered that the charges are to help the hospitals to purchase basic items such as gloves that the nurses would be using.
The Ghana Registered Nurses Association (GRNA) is surprised by the revelation and had warned hospitals charging the controversial fees to stop.
Vice President of the GRNA, Kwame Adinkra Amo, recently told Joy News that most district hospitals have disregarded a directive from the Health Ministry asking them to stop the practice.
�Students who were sent out to do their clinicals, hospitals are collecting GH�500 and GH�800 before they allow them to take care of the sick,� Mr Adinkra Amo said.
He said when the Association enquired from the hospitals what the money was used for; they claimed �they are going to use it to buy gloves.�
Some big hospitals including Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital were also engaged in the ignoble act, he claimed.
The expos� on the contentious charges is coming at a time when the government had decided to withdraw the monthly allowances nursing trainees across the country. The situation is brewing sentiments between the government and nurses who are planning to resist the policy.
The allowances given to the trainees formed part of incentives to attract more health workers in the Ghanaian health sector.
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