The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare, has backed calls for bonding of trainee nurses by government to be scrapped.
Nurses trained in public health institutions are required to work for the government for a specified amount of time, after they graduate, before they are allowed to seek employment with any other employer.
This system has been widely criticized as it has led to many nurses having to remain at home after they graduate, due to the limited employment opportunities in state health institutions.
This has led to numerous demonstrations by the nurses and other health professionals who agitate for placements in health institutions after leaving training school.
Speaking to Citi News, Dr. Asare, who was appointed on March 1 2017, stated that, the policy had outlived its usefulness, and given the fact that many trained nurses were left disadvantaged by it, allowing them to seek employment in private health institutions after graduation might be the best step.
“I believe, and it’s my conviction that I don’t think we still need to bond nursing trainees. I think we need a system where everyone who has finished nursing training school should take advantage of government employment. Government is the major employer of health staff because our private health sector is not as strong as we have in other countries where the private sector becomes a competitor in employment.”
“…So now that investor confidence is coming back, people are trying to invest in hospitals and health institutions; why should we continue to say that you’re bonding them and then cut off a very large number of nurses?”
The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang Manu, echoed these concerns in June, stating that bonding of trainee nurses appeared to have lost some of its value.
“We have several nursing training schools – some private ones have been training nurses for us…they pay their own school fees. So the value of bonding doesn’t seem to be real now,” he said.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
