Nurses and other health personnel at the West Gonja Hospital at Damongo in the Savannah Region embarked on a sit down strike on Monday.
This was as a result of what they say is management’s failure to come to the negotiation table over their allowances.
The nurses proposed that 10 percent of their basic salary be paid to them as monthly allowances but nothing has been done in that regard.
Some patients who were at the health facility for healthcare had to seek for medical attention elsewhere.
The nurses argue that, all efforts to get management of the hospital to either agree or negotiate this proposal have proven futile.
Secretary for the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) and Health Services Workers Union (HSWU) of West Gonja, Pappanko Nakpan in an interview with Citi News said the current turn of events was worrisome.
“It is not the nurses alone who are on strike. It includes all other workers except medical doctors. After all the push and pull factors that we had with this issue, they told us to give them one week to negotiate on our proposed 10 percent. It was not an entrenched position. It was a proposal that we wanted that percentage of increase of our basic salary as allowance. Some of the things we do here are not supposed to be done by nurses but we do them. We were supposed to conclude everything by negotiating on the 10 percent proposal and sign an MoU.”
These nurses who are members of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) and Health Services Workers Union (HSWU) have however assured that they would continue to attend to maternal and child health cases as well as emergencies.
They have however warned that, if their grievances are not met within the next 48 hours, they will take a rather stiffer decision.
