The Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) is demanding the removal of the Director of the National Service Secretariat, Mr. Alex Poku Mensah, from office.
The demand by GRNMA follows an incident involving the Regional NSS director and a nurse of the Manhyia District Hospital, which has been captured on tape.
A copy of the said recording intercepted by GhanaWeb shows Mr. Poku Mensah verbally abusing a nurse while threatening to transfer the nurse from the hospital.
The incident is said to have been triggered after the nurse placed a call to Mr. Poku Mensah’s daughter, who is a house officer at the health facility, asking for her return to the hospital to update the records of a patient in the hospital’s patient management system.
In a release dated November 29, 2022, GRNAM said Mr. Poku’s conduct during the altercation with the nurse showed that he is unfit for his office and must therefore be sacked.
“The Public Services Commission and Government for that matter should sack the said Regional Director immediately because he is not fit for the Director position he holds in the Public Service. He had absolutely NO RIGHT to enter Manhyia District Hospital and verbally abuse and threaten the nurse in question who was on duty at the time.
“AS a Director, he should have known that Manhyja District Hospital had a Medical Superintendent and a Nurse Manager under whom the nurse works and if indeed he had any complaint to make, they were the people he should have engaged and not to go to the hospital and fight the nurse on behalf of his daughter,” the statement said.
The GRNMA further warned that it will cause all nurses and midwives at the Manhyia hospital to withdraw their services if the government fails to relieve Mr. Poku Mensah of his position within 72 hours.
“We wish to state categorically that if the government does not relieve Mr. Alex Poku Mensah of his duty as Ashanti Regional Director of the National Service Scheme within 72 hours, nurses and midwives of Manhyia Hospital will be called upon to lay down their tools, followed by the whole of Ashanti Region and then it will be escalated to the whole nation,” it added.
Read the full statement by GRNMA and listen to the recording of the encounter between Mr. Alex Poku and the nurse below:
