Give us jobs now or face demo in 10 days – Private nurses

The Coalition of Unemployed Private Nurses (COUPN) has given the government a 10-day ultimatum to find its members jobs or face a demonstration.

The group has accused the government of gross discrimination in securing its members jobs.

The aggrieved nurses, who said they have been home since 2012, explained that they have participated in several discussions with the ministries involved to get their grievances addressed but to no avail.

In his recent state of the nation address, President Nana Akufo-Addo indicated that financial clearance had been released for some 22,000 nurses but the private nurses insisted that the government has excluded them from any employment arrangements.

The irate nurses have subsequently given the government a 10-day ultimatum for appropriate responses to their situation or else they will embark on a series of demonstrations across the country.

The spokesperson for the group, Doreen Boateng, told journalists at a press conference in Accra on Monday, 18 March 2019 that the president promised not to discriminate against any group of persons but has reneged on his vow with actions, which proves that the government feels nurses trained at private facilities are “irrelevant”.

She said: “There is no plan to recruit privately-trained nurses into the mainstream health sector by the government, as it is being done for state-funded nursing training institutions”.

Hundreds of trained nurses from private institutions besieged the premises of the Ministry of Health (MOH) in 2017 over the same issues.

They defied the presence of the police, forced their way into the ministry and brought business to a temporary halt.