Nurses’ strike escalates, disrupts healthcare services in Ghana

Negotiations aimed at ending a strike by nurses in Ghana that has disrupted medical services collapsed Wednesday, prompting the union to press on with the stoppage.

Around 85 percent of all nurses and midwives across Ghana are taking part in the strike, called by the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) on June 2.

Despite government overtures, talks hit a fresh impasse Wednesday when a scheduled truce meeting collapsed.

The nurses are demanding the full implementation of an agreement reached with the government in May last year.

It included an annual bonus equivalent to a month’s salary, fuel and medical allowances, rural posting incentives and support for licence renewal terms.

But the demands have not been included in the 2025 budget, officials said.

Hospitals around the country are already  reeling from the impact of the strike.

Local media quoted mortuary workers at the 1,600-bed Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in the capital Accra as saying there had been an increase in the rates of preventable deaths, with up to 25 daily fatalities.

Accra resident Agyarkor Kesse told AFP that his 18-year-old son died on Tuesday after hospitals declined to attend to him due to the strike.

“I took my son to Kpone government hospital first. When we got to the hospital, we were told the nurses were on strike. We were helpless,” Kesse said.

GRNMA general secretary David Tenkorang-Twum defended the strike action.

“Our demands are not above the roof… Our key demands… can be met without delay,” he told AFP.

Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandoh has promised swift government action and appealed for retired nurses and midwives to volunteer amid critical staff shortages.

But Deputy Finance Minister Thomas Nyarko Ampem said on Tuesday that fulfilling the nurses’ demands would cost over two billion cedis ($194.1 million), a potentially destabilising fiscal recovery.