Reports reaching Ultimate Radio indicates that an agreement has been reached for the scrapping of allowances paid to trainee nurses across the country.
This follows a stakeholder meeting between the Ministry of Health, the Ghana Registered Nurses Association, Nurses and Midwives Council, Principals of Nursing Training Institutions and the Trainee Nurses Association among others.
Confirming this to Ultimate Radio, the President of the Ghana Trainee Nurses Association, Emmanuel Geyevu, said the consensus was reached as far back as the 31st of January and that new applicants to nursing training colleges nationwide were aware that they were not going to receive their allowances.
Mr. Geyevu explained that under the agreement, trainee nurses currently in school will receive the allowances but new entrants for the 2014/2015 academic year, will not receive the allowance and will consequently not be bonded by Government.
�The continuing students in level 100, 200 and level 300 doing their diploma courses will be given their allowances in full, but those who will be admitted this year, we all came to a mutual conclusion that they won�t be receiving the allowance. They will be migrated to the student loans scheme. Also the community and health assistants, those doing the certificate courses, they will also receive fifty percent of the allowance they received initially.
He said although they were yet to hear from the Minister of Health, who has presented the consensus reached to cabinet, students being admitted are aware that they will not be receiving any allowances for their time in school.
He further divulged, �Initially they had wanted to scrap off the allowance completely but we had to plead with them because those in the training now should receive the allowance and that was the agreement.�
Mr. Geyevu also complained that although they had agreed to pay the allowance of the continuing students, up till now, they had not received their allowance forms for processing with the excuse that there have been some delays in issuing clearance letters.
Public Relations Officer for the Health Ministry, Tony Goodman, who would not clearly confirm the decision to scrap the allowances, claims some discussions are still underway with the Trainee Nurses Association to that effect.
He however said, �Whatever happens, you cannot continue paying allowances for the rest of your life so definitely one day, some measures will be taken. They know that some consultation is going on and we are looking at what the future holds when it comes to paying allowances. We are not saying that we are going to cancel it today because we in the ministry do not control the government purse.�
He added however that there was the need to �hold ourselves in preparedness for any unforeseen eventuality.�
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