Enrolled Nurses Course To Be Replaced

Beginning September 2008, the Ministry of Health will introduce the Health Assistant programme, a lower level cadre professional course to replace the enrolled nursing programme.

Products of the programme will support health professionals in the hospitals to improve healthcare delivery, Samuel Owusu Agyei, Deputy Minister of Health told parliament on Friday.

He was responding to a question posed to the ministry by Emmanuel Kwasi Bandua (NDC-Biakoye) who sought to findwhat plans the ministry had to re-open the Worawora Hospital Nursing Training School.

Mr. Owusu Agyei who is also the Member of Parliament for Effutu said the Worawora Nursing Training School would be reopened as a health Assistant Training School.

“This will begin with the training of tutors and refurbishment of existing structures,” he said.

He said the Worawora Training School was an Enrolled Nursing School which was closed down because the enrolled nurses programme was phased out in the 1990s.

Mr. Owusu-Agyei said the Health Assistant Programme was a more professional one year training programme, which is different from the National Youth Employment programme which offer six-month health extension officers to help in healthcare delivery in deprived areas.

In an answer to another question whether the ministry had plans to establish a nursing training college for the Techiman Holy Family Hospital, Mr. Owusu Ayei said the hospital was a missing one under the Christian Health Association of Ghana.

He said if a request was made to the ministry they would conduct feasibility study for possible consideration adding that currently, the ministry had no such proposals from the hospital for the establishment of a training school.

Mr. Owusu-Agyei also informed the house that by the end of the year, all regional capitals would have had ambulance stations and would then be extended to the district capitals in the course of the year.

Prof. Fobih explained that section 74 of the Minerals and Mining Act 2006 (Act 703) laid down the compensation principles aimed at ensuring prompt payment of fine and adequate compensation to affected parties.

He said after assessment compensation was paid prior to the destruction of the crops.

The principles he said were, the deprivation of the use of a particular natural surface of the land or part of the land, loss of or damage to immovable properties and loss of expected income depending on the nature of the crops on the land and their life expectancy.

He said section 73(3) of the Act also provided for the amount of compensation to be determined by agreement between the mining company and farmers.

Prof. Fobih said the Ministry had encouraged the formation of committees, composed of representatives of the farmers and the mining company to negotiate and arrive at appropriate compensation package for the various types of crops to be affected by the mining cooperation.

Prof. Fobih said, in most cases, farmers got more than the official rate.

He said for the identification and enumeration of crops in the field, the mining companies usually sought the assistance of the Land Valuation Board although the rates used for payment was determined by the committee.

“This arrangement has offered the farmers the opportunity to negotiate with the mining companies for fair compensation of their crops,” he said.