The Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) has served a notice of a nationwide strike if the government is determined to fire nurses and midwives hired into the public sector after the December 7 elections.
According to the GRNMA’s leadership, the directive would affect approximately 5,000 public-sector nurses and midwives, which will have an impact on healthcare delivery.
Perpetual Ofori Ampofo, President of the Association, spoke privately with 3news’ labor affairs correspondent, Daniel Opoku, in Accra on February 14, saying the dismissal should be stopped immediately.
Mrs. Ampofo warned that “any dismissal of those nurses and midwives will lead to a nationwide strike.“
“There is a lot of strain in our fraternity, and you should be on our platforms. If they suspend, we will have no alternative but to stand in solidarity with our colleagues. And solidarity implies that if you urge them to stay at home, we will all stay at home alongside them,” she continued.
A few weeks ago, the government asked Heads of State Institutions to revoke the appointments of individuals recruited after the December 2024 general elections whose names are not on the Controller and Accountant-General’s payroll as of January 2025.
The decision has since sparked agitation among the personnel, some of whom are nurses and midwives. The impacted nurses and midwives are from the 2020 and 2021 batches, which were recruited under the previous government.
Mrs Ofori Ampofo stated that the GRNMA’s leadership has consulted with Minister of Health Kwabena Mintah Akandoh on the topic.
Meanwhile, the Director General of the Ghana Health Service has issued a statement directing directors of institutions to begin dismissing freshly hired nurses and midwives before investigations are performed.
Mrs Ampofo described this development as unjust.
“We already have our colleagues on the field experiencing burn out, units and departments that are not meeting the ideal nurse to patient ratios and also faced with emigration of our colleagues into high earning income countries and therefore there is a huge workload on those that are post and working,” she said.
According to her, “If we have been able to recruit nurses and midwives to supplement the care that is being provided, why would we want to suspend them to go and sit at home while investigations are conducted?” In our opinion, they should be at the post to undertake investigations, which will inform any steps we decide to take, but not the other way around.”
She urged the Minister of Health to halt the dismissal process.
“We had a meeting with the Minister on the 13th of February and he explained to us, but he did not give us any indication that the nurses and midwives are going to be suspended,” she said.
