Nursing students protest over delays in Licensure Exams

Over 100 nursing students on Wednesday besieged the Health Ministry to protest what they said is delay in the sitting of their Licensure Examinations.

This follows an injunction by an Accra High Court to suspend the Licensure Examinations for nursing students.

Over 600 students were supposed to have taken the exams in November last year to obtain licenses to operate.

But some disgruntled students from the University of Ghana who had been disqualified by the Nurses and Midwives Council sought the injunction restraining the council from conducting the exams.

Interventions of the Education and Health Ministers to resolve the impasse for a new date to be set have been unsuccessful although the university authorities earlier gave the assurance that all was well.

At the precincts of the Health Ministry this morning, the students protested and called for the authorities to take immediate action to resolve the issue.

“They are not telling us anything concrete but we are hoping they tell us the date otherwise [we] will be back here again,” one student told Joy News.

“We can't wait any longer; it's been a very long time and psychologically we've been traumatized,” another student said.

Meanwhile, officials at the ministry and the Nurses and Midwives Council assured the students that new dates will be fixed soon because the students from Legon have been given amnesty to write the exams.

Checks by Joy News revealed that the Nursing School at Legon has now received the index numbers for the disqualified students to take the exams.

The Dean of Nursing at Legon, Dr. Ernestina Donkor, said the council has supplied the index numbers for the students granted amnesty to write their exams.

“We are okay with whatever we have now,” she told Joy News.

Lawyer for the Legon Students, David Agawuga, has given the assurance that his clients will go to court by next week to lift the injunction.