Some members of the Graduate Unemployed Nurses and Midwives Association (GUNMA) who picketed at the Ministry of Health (MoH) to demand a fair share of the national cake are likely to face court charges.
As a result, the group has called on President Akufo Addo to intervene and prevent the police from arranging them before court.
According to Mr Sugri Abdul-Rafiq, President of GUNMA, they are citizens of this country and children to the President, hence the need for his intervention.
“We reported on Friday and we were told that there is likelihood that they will arraign us before court and I am using this opportunity to appeal to the President that, as his children and citizens of the country, he should intervene and set us free.”
Mr Abdul-Rafiq made the plea when the group petitioned the minority in parliament to express their grievances.
It would be recalled that on Monday, October 21, GUNMA members, made up of public-trained nurses and midwives who graduated in 2017 and 2018 picketed in front of the MoH over joblessness.
Mr Abdul-Rafiq said that a prior notice was sent to the Accra Regional Police office and the MoH over the demonstration and expressed his surprise at the reaction of the police.
He said: “It is sad and shocking as members and leaders were harassed and some arrested by the Ghana Police Service as they picket at the MoH premises.”
According to him, one of their members was handcuffed while four executives, including himself who decided to follow up on why the member was arrested, were kept at a temporary cell at the CID office at the regional police headquarters for a while and statements taken from them later.
Mr Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, Ranking Member on Parliaments Committee of Health who received GUNMA members indicated that the actions of the police constitute intimidation.
He said that Ghana is a democratic country so actions such as intimidation and abuse of power cannot be tolerated.
“Let me add that, we see the actions and inactions of the Accra Regional Commander as an intimidation and that they must desist from that intimidation. We are in a democratic dispensation. They should not be using their authority to be intimidating people who are exercising their democratic right.”
He also added that per the law, one does not need a police permission to demonstrate, but rather a notification, so the attitude of the police was unjustifiable and called on the President to fulfill his promise of providing jobs for these unemployed nurses.
“The public order states that you don’t need the permission of the police to act, you only need to notify them and that is it. Notification is not the same as authorisation.”
Responding to the issue of unemployment, Mr Alexander Kwodwo Kom Abban, Deputy Minister of Health and Member of Parliament for Gomoa West said the Akufo Addo government has recruited all the backlog of graduate nurses from 2012 to 2016, hence can’t fathom the complains being made by the Minority in parliament.
He said that all the people they recruited are those that the National Democratic Congress should have recruited, but couldn’t due to their inefficiency.
He, however, indicated that nurses who completed school in 2017 and 2018 have not been recruited yet and doesn’t see why these nurses, having knowledge of this policy still went ahead to picket.
He called on all unemployed graduate nurses to exercise restraint, because the ministry has plans of recruiting all of them, come 2020.
He also indicated that there has been a directive from the ministry that all 2016 and 2017 allied health graduates can now apply for jobs.
He concluded that the government really spent huge sums of money training people to become nurses and doctors and that such investment will not go waste.
<<Print>>