THE NURSING & MIDWIFERY CONCLUSION
I have been following with keen alacrity on the various comments that emanated from a video I spoted a year ago by a classmate of mine back at Berekum Nursing Training College (2009).
I believe by the time I finish with my write up, I would become a temporal enemy but let me plead with ur indulgence to come out with the bitter truth.
To set the ball rolling, comparison is inevitable in a successful life journey. It's quite convincing that, until two things are compared, non can be considered the better and one wouldn't know he or she is late, until he compares and sees some are already ahead of him or her. All of us in one way or the other have for once raised the head to check whether other houses have lights when ours go off. When others have lights, you then challenge yourself and complain why it's so in order to fix it. Now to the main issue on board. Physicians basically school for six years whiles nurses do four years for degree. After completion, nurses are compelled to do something called national service, something that should have been reflected outright for salary payments less than Ghc 800 whiles the Physicians do same service but called it housemanship and takes over Ghc 6000 as salary. Even the Chief Nursing Officer, a rank that takes 30 to 35 years to reach, don't take home up to Ghc 6000 Be reminded we are still talking about service. If am to talk about real appointments, some of you guys can't withstand it. To add to it, the national service Physician (House officer) has on his payslip the following
1. single spine salary Ghc 3,682.39
2. Market premium Ghc 2,210.29
3. Fuel allowance Ghc 1,731.01
4. On call duty Ghc 5,52.36
As if all these are not enough, the facility would have to get him or her a furnished room with kitchen utensils. The degree nurse doesn't even have staff Id let alone talking of payslip during service. They are left to manage with their training mattresses and rent houses without toilet and bath. Most of them would have to queue at the public toilets and those who feel shy use the refuse dumps and bush. U will usually see them at the gobɛ joint hearing them saying "mepɛ gari beberee". My question to management and government is that, do they still expect good output from nurses? Do they still anticipate a smiling face from these hungry nurses? Posterity will judge us all.
These and many others are the information our leaders don't know and it's prudent to create the awareness. In the recent ended demonstration and negotiation that gave our PNOs DDNSs 40 gallons of fuel, the government team said it's funny for nurses to receive fuel allowance since it's not paid to anyone in the GHS but since our leaders knew our colleagues Physicians take it, they insisted and for the first time in history, fuel allowance has been captured on the payslip for some category of nurses. To some this is not fair but it's a foundation to build on.
Nursing has been where it is now due to lack of knowledge on what other professionals within the health sector enjoy and the need to be aware to form the basis for our next negotiation.
Again, just as it's unrealistic to get internal allowances from our IGF, so it is at the national level too. The talking is just too much. I remember the time of the former administrator, Nursing and Midwifery leaders met to meet management on the topic "INTERNAL ALLOWANCE NOW OR STRIKE" we didn't even close from the meeting and management called they have been informed of our intention to strike for NO ALLOWANCE and even mentioned the names of the proposers. How can we progress with this behavior of konkonsa and ns3kuro.
At this critical state of this hospital, newly posted Physicians were able to meet and demanded for over Ghc 20,000 for rent as well as Kitchen utensils and this was done for them as they didn't talk much about it. Last year when Doc Amponsah wanted to organize an end of year party, we had nurses who think they know the chiefs, the MP, the DCE and told them that the hospital has no consumables and still wanted to organize party. So I asked myself, are we only here for consumables?, What impact will consumables have in our life?. Perhaps the last straw that broke the camels back was the fact that, the party wasn't organized, but those who don't think much about consumables like you and I had their end of year benefits. This is the power of secrecy.
Let me touch on the issue of traveling which came up in the comments. There are three group of workers that must be noted.
The first group are those that will travel at all cost whether the economy is good or bad. The second group are those that will not travel if things get better. The last group are those that will never ever travel. The majority of us are within the second group who are just waiting for things to get better which can be done if nursing leadership sits up like it has started but there's still more room for improvement.
This is to say that not all of us will travel and thus need to get what's due us in this country. To those who see traveling as the only savior can do so and allow those who can stay to demand what's due them.
Maybe I have to end this on value and respect for each other. Isn't it out of place for a nurse on duty to rush and attend to a medical officer who has headache and tell a colleague nurse who is bitten by a snake 🐍 to go and get a folder first? I witnessed something that I always feel awful to talk about. I visited a friend at Holy Family Hospital last year at the Male ward, where a Physician was admitted following a simple malaria. I saw that all the nurses were around him carrying out various procedures. Everyone wanted to touch and check the vitals whiles one midwife also on admission was seen not only emptying her own urine bag, but also going to discard. My goodness ( not the Goodness at Male ward ), so can't we have some level of empathy and sympathy for our own colleagues. I believe we should rather give all the attention to our own colleagues than any other person. How many times haven't we heard, "oyɛ Nurse nti dɛn?". We fear to introduce ourselves as nurses when we visit hospitals to our own colleague nurses due to the feedback, " oyɛ Nurse nti dɛn?" To add to it, the standing up tradition that is given to senior nurses are now given to Physicians. We see matron with her bag and allow her to carry it the office whiles we rush to collect a physician's bag into his consulting room for the sake of a favour best known to them.
Hope to meet someday, sometime, somewhere with better conditions of service be it Ghana, Finland, UK, USA, Canada, and among others.
Thanks
Sosu Nana David ( NanaDav ).... nanarespecto@gmail.com (Kintampo South District Hospital)
There is an interesting reactions to this article, and here is an animated video of the sound:
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