Restoration of nurses trainee allowance to be launched October 10

About 58,000 trainee nurses and midwives will receive their monthly allowance after the launch of the restoration of the allowance in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region on October 10, 2017.

The government is also to abolish the taxes on the allowance to ease pressure on the nurses, especially those posted to remote areas.

“Nurses and midwives were previously receiving GH¢525 gross allowance, which was taxed, but we are saying we will restore the allowance without tax,” the Health Minister, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, said at the seventh induction and oath-swearing ceremony for allied health graduates from four institutions in Accra last Saturday.

It was held on the theme: “The case for a paradigm shift in the practice of allied health professionals in Ghana.”

Digitisation

Mr Agyeman-Manu also stressed the government’s preparedness to go paperless in all sectors and said efforts were being made to digitise services at all health facilities across the country.

“We are currently doing a pilot in Cape Coast and six other health facilities in the Central Region,” he said.

The minister said the government was investing in the health sector, while at the same time partnering the private sector to invest in same.

Assistance

The Registrar of the Allied Health Professional Council, Dr Samuel Yaw Opoku, who also addressed the health professionals, asked those practising without licences to desist from that.

“It is equally an offence for any institution to engage the services of an unlicensed person,” he added.

He advised them to continually search for knowledge to improve on their services.

The Head of the Department of Physiotherapy at the College of Health Sciences at the University of Ghana, Dr Ajediran Idowu Bello, proposed to the Ministry of Health to include allied health professionals in the primary healthcare setting to ensure a shift from institution-based care to community and society-based practice.

Induction

Some 684 interns who had completed programmes in DOC Optometry, BSc Diagnostic Radiography, BSc Nutrition and BSc Physiotherapy were inducted.

Others had completed programmes in BSc Sonography, BSc/MSc Dietetics, Medical Physics, MedLab Scientist and Occupational Therapy.

The inductees were from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the University of Cape Coast, the Radford University, the University of Ghana and the University for Development Studies.