Patient confidentiality is missing among nurses, midwives – GRNMA Chair

Chairperson of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) in the Builsa North Municipality, Ms Zenabu Zimi, has expressed disappointment about the attitudes of some nurses and midwives who easily disclose medical conditions of patients to members of the public.

She said such behaviour was highly unprofessional and unbefitting of nurses and midwives, stressing that, “The way we handle patient confidentiality is very bad. How can we, as nurses be discussing patients' conditions with non-health professionals?”

Ms Zimi was speaking at a meeting organized at the instance of the Emergency Department of the Sandema Hospital to strategize and strengthen the emergency preparedness of the Department to enable it urgently to always attend to emergency health conditions.

She recalled that when some nurses in the Municipality were infected with COVID-19 in their line of duty, some of their colleagues who should have adhered to the principle of confidentiality in the health care delivery system were rather the ones spreading the information in town.

She said even when the infected nurses had fully recovered and resumed duty at their various facilities, some of them were still stigmatized at public places by people who got wind of information of their infection.

“Patient confidentiality is not new to us, as nurses and midwives, we all know about it, and the need to keep health conditions and issues of our patients and colleagues highly and strictly confidential.

“In fact, under no circumstance should a nurse or midwife disclose to anyone outside the healthcare team the diagnosis or medical history or condition of any patient,” Ms Zimi, who also doubles as Manager of the Male Surgical Unit of the Sandema Hospital said.

The Association's Chairperson also called on nurses and midwives in the Municipality who had left the “Mother Association, GRNMA” to other Associations within the profession to “return home.”

Mr Cletus Apaliyine Adongo, the Manager of the Emergency Department of the Hospital, reminded staff on the need to be emergency prepared, and ensure emergency drugs were readily available in the Department to attend to cases.

“It is an emergency unit, we can never tell when an emergency case will be rushed in, and so we need to always make sure our equipment and drugs are available to attend to any case. Any drug used on a patient from our stock must be replaced,” he advised the nurses.

He urged the staff to inculcate in themselves the habit of reading, especially health journals and materials on health conditions, to refresh their minds on various medical conditions, and keep them abreast with current trends of diseases.

As critical service providers in the Hospital, Mr Adongo insisted that staff in the Emergency Unit must not be knowledge deficient in the management of any health condition, to enable them to contribute to quality and efficient health service delivery in the facility and Municipality as a whole.

He emphasised the need for staff to also adhere to proper channels of communication within the Hospital's setup, to have their concerns and grievances properly addressed by leadership and management of the Hospital.

GNA