Government have pampered nurses for too long – IMANI president Franklin Cudjoe

Nurses across Ghana agreed with the government, the health Ministry, and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission to return to work after days of strike, leading to many Ghanaians suffering because all public hospitals were closed.

The president and founder of IMANI Centre for Policy and Education has criticised the government for pampering nurses in Ghana for far too long.

In an interview on Channel One TV, Cudjoe said, “How have we treated nurses even when they are training? We’ve pampered them. Haven’t we?” The IMANI president is not happy with the allowances given to nurses when they are under training, as he thinks the government does that just for votes.

“Politically, one party says—John Mahama—that he will not pay any nurses’ allowance. The opposition at the time used it against him. And when they came, they started paying and rewarding these entities. I have never understood that game,” he said. Payment of nurses trainees’ allowances has become political as the opposition uses it against the incumbent and vice versa.

“The moment we do these shifty politics and think we can garner votes through these freebies to a section of the population that do not require it, that do not need it, we should not be crying now that they have come back biting at us,” he warned.

‘Backbiting’, Franklin Cudjoe described the nurses’ strike recently as a way of punishing the government, which he means instead of them paying back to Ghanaians and the government, they rather gang up against them.