Tuesday,
December 3, 2013
My good friends, there seems to
be too much running around in circles. No day passes by without something
coming from officialdom to confirm my fears that the government is spiraling itself
out of control and stepping on too many toes for which it will be punished at
Election Time.
We are even not talking about the
adverse impact on the country itself. Of course, not everything done by the
government can be said to be in the national interest. That is why we must sit
up to face up to the government, especially when it goes wrong.
So, the latest mis-step is that the
government is moving ahead to scrap
allowances of trainee nurses too.
It is a bad move to be reconsidered.
Of course, it appears the government’s
cost-recovery measures are being pursued with a heartlessness that must
frighten everybody who sympathizes with the victims-to-be.
As if not perturbed by the agitations at the
teacher-trainees’ front regarding the cutting off of their allowances as recently
announced (and is set to be enforced), the government has decided to take its
draconian measures to the health sector.
In fact, I don’t welcome this move at all. It
is counter-productive and must be abandoned before it creates more credibility
problems for the government.
Anybody who supports this move to deny the
trainees their little allowance is heartless. That is what I have gathered from
the statement attributed to Kwame Adinkra Amo (the President
of the Ghana Registered Nurses Association).
He
has described statements made by the former Director General of the Ghana
Health Service, Prof. Badu Akosa, in support of government’s decision to scrap
allowances of trainee nurses as unfortunate.
Added
to that is my political instinctual feeling that those supporting the move by
the government are not seeking the wellbeing of the government and the country
that it rules. The measure will definitely create enemies for the government,
which Election Time will confirm.
There
are more gripping aspects of the issue, though. The common saying that the
teacher’s reward is in heaven must be enough to touch any heart that pumps
blood. Like teachers, nurses too are gearing up for their reward in heaven. Two
vital professions that no society can do with but whose members are least
respected or rewarded for their human-centred activities.
Tell
me, someone. Who can progress in life without the influence of a teacher or a
nurse? Whose labour brought up the Presidents and so-called bigshots in
government? How many teachers haven’t influenced lives? How about the nurses to
whom they rush whenever they have the slightest health problem? So, why no
respect for these professionals?
I
am really troubled by this decision to withdraw allowances for the trainee
nurses. That on the teacher trainees seems to have been finalized and won’t be
changed despite all entreaties. Sad; really saddening!!
Undoubtedly, nursing is more of a yeoman’s job
than any profit-making venture, regardless of how nurses join their fellow
public sector workers to agitate for better remuneration and conditions of
service, generally. After all, they go to the same market for survival and must
have their labour’s worth.
But beyond that material level is the real
issue: nursing is more of a philanthropic or humanitarian venture than anything
else. Nurses guided by the Florence Nightingale spirit are in the profession to
save human beings from suffering, using their training and natural bent for empathy
to serve humanity’s health needs.
Some bad nuts in the profession may put their
personal interests above the humanitarian aspects of the profession; but their
deeds or posture don’t devalue the foundation on which the profession is built.
Every human community has bad nuts to explain why perfection is not a human
quality.
But in this case of Ghanaian nurses, it is
imperative that the authorities don’t do anything to add more to their woes. We
know the challenges facing them at the workplace—working under virtually
inhuman conditions, improvising in the face of obsolete or non-existent
healthcare equipment; being exposed to communicable diseases brought for
treatment (because they lack the appropriate gadgets and protective cover);
coping with the general harsh economic situation in the country; lacking means
of transportation to and from work and, therefore, working overtime to keep
themselves afloat; and many other depressing reasons.
Translate all these problems from these
established professionals to those in training and you should see the enormity
of the problem and sympathize with those trainee nurses now to be deprived of
their allowances.
In fact, the government is being insensitive to
the highest degree and must be blamed if the health sector suffers adversely
from this draconian measure. We don’t know how much “allowance” a trainee nurse
is paid to warrant any fuss over this concession; but we can say that
conditions under which these trainee nurses function don’t justify any removal
of the allowances.
The problems associated with their admission
into the training institutions, board-and-lodge facilities, and many others
that confront them are heavy.
If the government indeed wants the health
sector to survive, it must rather invest much in them, including providing
every opportunity for anybody entering that sector to have the best training
and be psychologically attuned to the reality of the health situation in the
country. Nothing must be done to demoralize of shoot down the system.
I urge the government to rescind this decision
on allowances for the trainee nurses and teachers so that those who have the
aptitude for those professions can help us move the country forward.
A country that has a good system of education
and health delivery is next to being developed with a human face. Education and
health are very crucial to national development, and the government must do all
it can to sustain efforts at improving the situation, not dampening spirits and
negating efforts.
Day-in-day-out, President Mahama and his team
boast of the vision to establish hundreds of schools and hospitals all over the
country as part of the “Better Ghana Agenda”. What will these physical
structures amount to without the human elements? How do we hope to produce
professionals for the schools and hospitals if we demoralize the trainees and
frustrate efforts at preparing them for the challenges ahead?
I hope that those in government supporting the
removal of all these allowances have the capacity to see things beyond their
noses to know that the future is at stake and that the government’s
ill-considered measures regarding the allowances for these trainees will
definitely have a negative impact on human resource development.
It is better for the government to look more
closely at how revenue is spent and to close the loopholes so that enough money
can be generated for use to support human resource development in vital areas
such as health and education. Turning round to deprive the trainees of the
allowances that they need to undergo training will not solve any budget
shortfall problem. Is this NDC government really socially democratic? A paradox
of sorts!!
I shall return…
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