President John Mahama, has challenged Nursing Training Institutions to help transform the profession into a human centred-vocation, where attitude towards patients would be pleasant.
President Mahama mentioned that attitude of nurses, which included verbal abuse and neglect of professional duties which sometimes resulted in avoidable deaths, was not in consonance with professional healthcare, and was therefore unacceptable.
Addressing the 50th anniversary celebration of the Koforidua Nursing and Midwifery Training School, the President in a speech read on his behalf by the Eastern Regional Minister Mr Antwi Boasiako Sekyere, said reports of attitude of health workers, particularly nurses, was denting the image of the profession.
Mr Mahama indicated that the 10% salary cut from state appointees since last year, has accrued a total of Gh¢327,363.00 to the State, and it would be used to construct CHPS centres for community health promotion, to make healthcare accessible in the remote and deprived areas.
He announced that government intends to recruit retired midwives to man the various CHPS compounds and other community health centres as a measure to address the shortage of midwives, to promote maternal healthcare.
The President reiterated that plans were far advanced for the Eastern Regional hospital to be located in Koforidua, and appealed to nurses to accept postings to anywhere in the country that their services would be needed, to ensure holistic approach to healthcare provision.
The Chief Director of the Ministry of Health (MOH) Madam Salimata Abdul Salam, who represented the Minister of Health, Dr Kwaku Agyeman Mensah, also spoke on the negative attitude of health workers particularly nurses towards clients and called for a change.
She said the ministry was worried about that, and urged the training institutions to instil professional ethics in students, to enable them acquire the required attitude towards their clients in the discharge of their professional duties.
Mrs Doreen Osae-Ayensu Principal of the school said the school over the past 50 years had trained 5,095 nurses and 1,935 midwives for the nation including many of them heading other sister institutions and the current registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Mr Felix Nyante.
She said whiles the school prides itself in the achievements made towards healthcare and professional training in its 50 years of existence, it equally has challenges that militated against its development mentioning lack of infrastructure including hostel for boys, skills acquisition laboratories and computers.
The Principal revealed that a boy’s hostel started 40 years ago was still at its foundation stage, a situation she described was preventing the school to admit more boys even though qualified to train as nurses and appealed for support.
However, she said, in spite of the challenges, the schools performance continue to improve yearly indicating that last year the school chalked 89 percent mark in the licensure examination and hoped to improve upon it.
