Former President, John Dramani Mahama, has revealed that, his administration scraped the nursing Trainee allowance because he (Mahama) wanted to build more hospital facilities to absorb nursing trainees.
Speaking to party supporters and student nurses at the Jirapa Nursing/Midwifery Training College in the Upper West Region Tuesday, Mr Mahama said “In 2016, we were trying to sort out the problem of funding our trainee teachers and nurses; so we came out with an alternative and we said we will give them preliminary allowance while we work to put them to the student loan Scheme, so they can fund their education and it’s only when they get job that they will start to pay back. Our political opponents took advantage of it and said one of the key promises is that when they come , they will pay all the trainee nurses their allowances."
He further explained that the NDC government was going to build more health facilities "so we could absorb more of our trainees to work in those facilities."
“In the eight years when NDC was in power, we were working on 32 major health facilities and we're going to add 6000 new hospital beds; and for every hospital bed, you need at least 6 nurses to take care of the patients. So it is better to look for a sustainable solution than to take cheap political advantage. Now you got the political power and it is time to keep those promises,” he said.
The allowance, which was scraped by the immediate past National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, was met with strong resistance from the trainee teachers who complained bitterly about the difficulties it had brought upon them.
Mr. Mahama could not fathom why the NPP is exhibiting signs of apprehension after declaring his intention to contest the 2020 elections on the ticket of the main opposition National Democratic Congress.
He added that the only person NPP fears in the 2020 election is him John Dramani Mahama.
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com | Hughes Boateng