Health Professionals urged to adhere to ethical values

Mr Felix Nyante, the Registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, has urged health professionals of government health institutions to adhere strictly to the ethical values of the profession to avoid being sued by patients.

He said patients were very mindful of their health rights and could take health professionals on when they violated their rights.

Mr Nyante was speaking in Bolgatanga where he met some health professionals including Principals of government health institutions, as part of a series of durbars held in the Upper East Region, to discuss some measures taken by the Nursing and Midwifery Council to improve health services.

He said patients were very mindful of their health rights and could take health professionals on when they violated their rights.

He told the stakeholders that quality of health standards was the hallmark of the Council, and explained that it was against that background that the Council initiated some measures to ensure that standards were maintained in the health facilities and health training institutions.

Some of the measures included the setting up of committees at the regional levels to help the Council regulate unaccredited health institutions across the country, and to ensure that students of health institutions were offered both theoretical and practical training well to ensure that health quality standards were achieved, he said.

He said over-crowdedness of students at health facilities during clinical training was not only compromising the quality of the training of the human resource, but affected the patients at the health facilities.

Whilst commending the Upper East Regional Health Directorate and the Health Training Institutions for taking the lead by setting up the committee to help the Council address that phenomenon, the Registrar called on the leadership of the Regional Health Directorate to speed up the process.

The Registrar called on the health personnel who send students on clinical training on errands to desist from that negative practice as it affected their training.

Mr Ampem Okluchu Abbey, Senior Operation Officer of the Council, warned Nurses and Midwives who engaged in teaching at unaccredited health training institutions to desist from that or else they would be dealt with by the Council when caught.

He said health training institutions provided about 80 per cent of the human resource base for the Ghana Health Service, and noted that as a constitutional mandated regulated body, the Council would not tolerate quack health professionals in the system.

The Upper East Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Kofi Issah, commended the Council for the innovation and thanked the Council for donating hospital beds to some health institutions in the Region.

He said the paradigm shift would help improve upon quality health delivery in the Region, and gave the assurance that his outfit would facilitate the implementation of the process effectively to achieve the desired impact.