Roadmap to nurses’s strike intensifies in Bolgatanga Municipality – Ghana Business News
Members of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) in public health facilities across the Bolgatanga Municipality in the Upper East Region continue to wear red bands while delivering services to patients.
A visit by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) to the Regional Hospital at about 1030hours on Tuesday to assess nurses and midwives’ adherence to the Association’s roadmap, observed that the professionals were busily attending to patients in red bands tied to their wrists, heads and arms.
At the Out-Patient Department (OPD), all nurses including the unit head, seated at the vital signs table wore red bands while assessing patients.
The situation was not different at the maternity, gynecological, mental health, reproductive and child health, and other specialized units when the GNA visited.
Apart from the Regional Hospital, nurses and midwives at the Presbyterian Health Centre, the Coronation Health Centre in the Municipality, were not left out, as they also spotted in red bands when the GNA visited.
Leadership of the GRNMA on May 28, 2025, released a roadmap on a planned industrial action to register its displeasure with what it described as “overly delayed” implementation of their collective agreement.
According to the Association, the said collective agreement was signed in May 2024 between the GRNMA and its employer but was not implemented despite several visits to the Ministries of Finance and Health for approval.
The leadership said the delay was not only a disservice to Ghanaian nurses and midwives but posed a threat to the delivery of quality health services to Ghanaians.
In the roadmap to the industrial action, the GRNMA said members would wear red arm and head bands from June 2 to June 3, withdraw all OPD services between June 4 and June 8, and from June 9 onwards, they would withdraw all services.
Mr Francis Wuni, the Upper East Regional Secretary of the GRNMA, who was on rounds to monitor the situation, told the GNA that “As you can see; we are not joking, and we will not compromise until the employer fully meets our demands.”
He said other Regional, Municipality and District executives were on rounds to public health facilities to assess the situation, adding that “We will follow the roadmap to the latter if our demands are not met.
“The GRNMA is the mother Association of all nurses and midwives in this country. We have the numbers, and you can rest assured that if our members withdraw services, the impact will be massive.
“As critical professionals in the healthcare delivery system, we know the unbearable consequences our actions can cause, and so we do not enjoy industrial actions. All we demand is for the employer to implement our collective agreement,” he said.
Mr Wuni disclosed that the region had a total of 6,625 nurses and midwives, out of which 5,142 were members of the GRNMA, “And this data reflects across the country, so you can imagine what a full-blown strike will cause.”
Some patients at the Regional Hospital’s OPD the GNA spoke to said they were unaware of the intended strike action, and initially thought the hospital had lost a staff, for which reason the nurses wore the red bands, until they enquired.
A patient, in queue at the OPD to check his Blood Pressure, on condition of anonymity, said “I hope that government will listen to them, address their issues before they activate a full-blown strike action.”
Source: GNA
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