Unemployed Health Assistants Stage Protest

Health assistants in the Northern Region on Monday picketed at the Regional Coordinating Council to demand employment from government.

The graduates, numbering about 500 from four different institutions, accused the health ministry of being bias in their postings.

According to the health assistant graduates, rules governing their studies stipulate that they are posted three months after graduation.

However, they have been home for the past 15 months with no employment in sight.

They accused government of favouring their colleagues in the south over them.

Spokesperson for the group, Iddi Lawrence, told JOY FM, “Our seniors matched to the Flagstaff House but when they brought out the clearance, it covered only the southerners, we the northerners were exempted, we were not part of it.

So our problem is that why the southerners employed and only a few were picked from the northern sector. They picking a few and we have been waiting for almost one year is a problem.

We cannot continue to wait, for how long can we wait?” he queried.

He said their parents were relying on them to them to support the family and that it is wrong to “pay huge sums of fees and sit at home doing nothing.”