The industrial action began yesterday (Monday) after claims of poor working conditions and low wages.
The midwives and nurses on strike have threatened not to return to work until the government has addressed these issues.
President of the Nurses and Midwives Trainees Association, Andrew Tetteh, said junior nurses have long been taken for granted and it is time for action.
He told
Citi News that student nurses who started work in 2009 have not yet been paid, making life unbearable.
‘The 2008/09 batch has been working for almost two years without salary,’ he said.
‘They have been posted to various parts of the country without money to rent a room [or for food and] the student nurses are tasked with the payment of their own school fees.’
He added that there is no government subsidisation and those at teacher training institutions are paid considerably more.
He said the salary disparity is causing economic embarrassment to the student nurses.
At a news conference in Accra on Monday, he added that petitions had been sent to the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service.
The news comes a couple of weeks after initial hints at industrial action were made when nurses and midwives urged the government to respond to their demands for increase in allowances.
The deputy minister for health, Rojo Mettle Nunoo, has described the strike as 'unofficial and unwarranted'.
He said negotiations are ongoing as part of efforts to improve upon the working conditions of all health sectors, including the nurses and midwives trainees.
