The Ministry of Health says it has secured financial clearance to absorb unemployed bonded nurses.
Sector Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, has assured distressed nurses that they will receive their appointment by the end of this year.
He said that the ministry had plans to employ them several months ago.
“We had plans to actually recruit them as far back as March, we ask those who attended private schools to come to register so that we can capture their data to know how many were still sitting at home, some have sat home for as far back as 2012 and we sympathize with their course.” the Minister explained.
According to Mr. Agyeman Manu, their efforts to bring all of them on board was what delayed the issuance of the financial clearance by the Finance Ministry.
The financial clearance comes amidst demonstrations and picketing by dozens of bonded nurses who were still at home and were demanding immediate posting.
Several hundreds of bonded nurses nationwide took to the streets last week in various regions to register their displeasure over government’s failure to post them after training.
The Minister went a step further to assure the yet-to-be-posted nurses that they will soon receive their appointment letters and will be placed to start work within the next three months.
“By the close of the year we might have given them appointment letters, we might have posted them what we don’t want to do is to post them and they will go and sit there for two months without salary and then we create salary arrears.”
“Last year all those that we posted we paid them their salaries we want to do same this year. Now that we have the financial clearance, the next few weeks we start interviews and subsequently, post them into places for them to get work to do.” he reiterated.
He says with clearance from the Finance Ministry, all unemployed nurses will be absorbed.