National Service Rotation Nurses declare strike over unpaid allowances

• Posted on December 13, 2019December 13, 2019
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

National Service Rotation Nurses and Midwives in the Upper East Region have declared an indefinite strike over government’s inability to pay their nine months allowance.

According to them, life has become unbearable as they are unable to foot their bills including transportation to work.

Speaking to Citi News, convener for the group, Emmanuel Dawuni, said, they will only call off the strike if government urgently addresses their concerns.

“The process that will lead to the payment of our allowance has not commenced at all because first of all, our tax identity cards have not been generated followed by the biometric verification. And in our case, in the whole of Upper East Region, with over three hundred health interns, only seventy-five health interns have been captured for biometric verification and we think that it is either the government is deliberately punishing us or disrespecting us. That is the reason for all this. We are even tired. We can’t continue working on an empty stomach. We hardly feed ourselves. Our accommodation is a problem. We are appealing to government to urgently address our issue,” he said.

The past few months have witnessed various groups including health workers calling on government for salary payment amongst other concerns.

In September 2019, the Nurses and Midwives National Service Personnel  across the country appealed to government to advance action on paying their five (5) months National service allowance arrears.

According to the group, government had not paid them their national service allowances between April and August 2019 and efforts to get government to start processes for the payment of their allowances have proven unsuccessful.

-Citi