Health training institutions over producing than required - NMC

The Nurses and Midwifery Council (NMC) has revealed that health institutions in the country are churning out products more than required for consumption by the state.

This is as a result of over admissions by various public health training institutions which have resulted in the backlog of nurses who have graduated and yet cannot be engaged by public health facilities in the country.

Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the NMC, Nana Boateng Agyeman on Accra-based Okay Fm, said it has been observed over the period that these health training institutions double their intake also making the quality of training poor.

According to him, facilities meant for a specific number are overstretched in such instances indicating that a new quota system adopted by the Ministry Health will ensure that health training institutions take a number of entrants they can comfortably train who may be assured of jobs on completion.

He continued that a high increase in enrolment rates would activate a correspondingly high increase in the payment of trainee allowances which government may not be ready to shoulder.

In other words, the quota system where public nursing trainee institutions admit limited numbers despite the capacity of the facilities to admit more is the order of the day.

Responding to the release of quotas to the various Health Training Institutions in the country he said “we want the heads of those institutions to abide by the number so that we do not have people picketing and claiming they do not have jobs”