The Ketu South Municipal Hospital, which is located at Aflao in the Volta Region has been hit severely by the strike action that the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) is currently embarking on.
The hospital which used to host hundreds of medical attention seekers on normal working days, looked deserted when GhanaWeb Volta Regional correspondent visited the facility on the second day of the nationwide strike.
Closed wards, a complete silence and empty seats are the things one can use to describe the hospital environment on Tuesday, September 22, 2020.
However, conversations had with some people at the facility suggested that some kind-hearted nurses continue to render their services to those that needed it.
An aged woman, Dangoe Wumedzi who spoke to GhanaWeb indicated that when she arrived at the facility, she was told by the nurses present that they are on strike so she should wait for the doctor to come and attend to her. She continued that the nurses then instructed her to sit, and they [nurses] attended to her.
“They told me they are on strike, so I should wait for the doctor, but they later asked me to sit and they attended to me before the doctor came and also attended to me,” Madam Dangoe was quoted as saying.
Robert Donini, a gentleman who brought his brother to the hospital for medical attention also indicated that they were received warmly by the few nurses available and that his brother was being attended to, few minutes after their arrival at the facility.
“We just came and they are attending to my brother,” he said.
When asked if the nurses told them about the strike; Robert said, “No, we were told nothing like that.”
Another woman, who only gave her name as Esther and refused to speak on camera, also revealed that she was well attended to by the nurses when she came for a medical check-up.
GRNMA, an association that has nurses, midwives, Physician Assistants and Certified Registered Anesthetists as its members has initiated an industrial action which started on Monday, September 21, 2020.
The purpose of the strike, according to the leaders of the association, is to get the government to address the grievances of the members of the association after they have been ignored for so long.
