Student nurses at the Bolgatanga Nursing Training College (BNTC) in the Upper East Region, say their allowances are in three months arrears.

The student said from the government this year.

The students said January, February, and March allowances were paid, while April, May, June, and July were in arrears.

Mr Benjamin Asaana Ndegumah, the President of the Students Representative Council (SRC) said this when Mr Stephen Yakubu, the Upper East Regional Minister visited the College to interact with staff and students as part of his scheduled visits to health training institutions in the Region.

He said apart from the four months arrears, “There are inconsistencies in the payment. Some get it, whilst others don’t. We have some students who still have not received any. We made follow-ups to the Ministry and what they tell us is that they are working on it.”

He recalled that in the year 2020, about eight months allowances were not paid, and said they were told that it would be carried forward, “Even some of our colleagues completed school without their allowances.

“So, we plead with the Minister to intervene for us. The irregularities in the allowances are a major problem to us,” the SRC President added.

He further enumerated several concerns of students of the College and said the road leading to the College was in bad condition without street lights and students on several occasions had been attacked and robbed of their valuables.

He also appealed to the Minister for computers and books to stock their computer laboratory and library respectively to aid in their academic activities and called for support to fix the infrastructural challenges of the College.

Mr Williams Sebil, the Principal of the College, said in spite of the numerous challenges of the College, it had produced highly qualified nurses for the Region and the entire country.

“If you check the records of the College, we have produced a lot, some of them are Nurse Tutors, District Directors of Health Services in this Region and beyond. The College has achieved a lot in teams of academics.”

He disclosed that the College had 89.4 percent pass in the 2020 Nursing and Midwifery Council’s licensing examination, adding that referred students from that examination who rewrote, got 100 percent pass.

On the issue of possible COVID-19 infection among students, the principal said “So far, we don’t have any problem, and I must thank the government. We had enough for the Personal Protective Equipment, and we are grateful to the government in this direction.”

The Minister on his part, called on management and Tutors of the College to, as part of their training, emphasise on the attitude of the nurses they churned out, saying that Ghanaian trained nurses fitted well and worked professionally outside the country, but in Ghana, some of them had bad attitudes towards patients.

He observed that most people were into the nursing profession as a means to easily gain employment after the training, “Those days, nursing was a call, but these days, it is about getting employment. It should not be so.”

When Mr Yakubu earlier visited the Zuarungu Nursing Training College (ZNTC) students expressed the same concerns with the allowances and also appealed for computers and well-equipped library to support their studies.