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Trainee nurses and midwifery students in the various nursing training colleges in Ghana are calling on the ministry of health and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to cut down fees paid by trainee nurses and midwives as it renders their allowances valueless.

According to the Northern Zonal President for the Trainee Nurses and Midwives’ Association, Sugri Abdul Rafiq, the executives of the Trainee Nurses and Midwives’ Association met with officials of the current government to discuss ways the fees paid by theses training institutions can be renegotiated but has yielded no results.

Students in the various nursing training institutions across the country, he said, were disappointed to see huge fees on their student bills contrary to what was discussed in a meeting with the Deputy Health Minister, Tina Mensah.

Sugri Abdul Rafiq made the comments in an interview on Atinka FM yesterday.

He noted that some of the items on the bill such as educational visits, entertainment fees among others were not necessary and therefore needed to be reviewed.

“Although the bill was not reduced, some other items have been introduced and that has even increased the bill. We wanted a reduction but we got the opposite”, he added.

According to the Northern sector Zonal President they have also had their challenges compounded with the delay in receiving their much touted restored allowance, with some of their members only receiving a month’s allowance ever since the allowances were restored in September 2017.

The allowances, which were scrapped by the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) was met with strong resistance from the nursing trainees who complained bitterly about the difficulties it had brought upon them.

Sugri Abdul Rafiq said attempt to get answers as to why the allowances have delayed from government have proven futile.

“Since the restoration was launched by the government, the assumption of many of our parents and guardians is that, even if they don’t give us money from home, we can take care of ourselves as students because of the restoration of allowance, unfortunately, one thing is announcing a restoration as it was done by government and actually making payments as promised is also another thing. So far, government’s commitment towards the payment of the allowance after its restoration is so far not encouraging,” he stated.