The National Association of Registered Midwives, Ghana (NARM-Ghana) is urging midwives across the country to come together and push for their own collective bargaining certificate.
Currently, the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) is the only Union within the nursing fraternity with a certificate to negotiate with the employer for the welfare of members.
Chairperson of the Greater Accra Branch of the Association, Ms Leticia Atiah, explained that the diverse nature of the midwifery profession required that the practitioners negotiate their conditions of service.
Speaking with the Ghanaian Times in Accra yesterday after a meeting of national executives of the Association, Ms Atiah noted that only practitioners of midwifery were best-placed to negotiate for conditions of service and not any other profession.
She explained that the practice was started in the past because of the low number of practicing midwives in the country, saying “that is not the case now and so we must be able to negotiate our own conditions of service”.
The responsibilities of midwives, he said, far outweighed that of the nurses, citing their duty of caring for both pregnant women, lactating and newly born babies as an example.
In health centres, mostly sited at rural and remote communities, the Greater Accra Chairperson said midwives were playing the role of both doctors and nurses and in some cases laboratory technicians.
“The work we do as midwives is different from what nurses do. We have lots of responsibilities as compared to the nurses.
“While caring for lactating mothers and newborn children, we are also tasked with caring for them when they get sick. In some communities, we are the doctors and nurses and laboratory technicians. These back up our demands for a bargaining certificate to be able to negotiate our conditions of service,” Ms Atiah added.
Although midwives in the country belonged to various associations, she indicated that it was time they all rallied together in pursuit of one bargaining certificate.
She called on the Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service to work with the Association in securing the certificate.
BY CLAUDE NYARKO ADAMS
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