Bonding of nurses will compound frustrations - Atinga

Yendi (N/R), May 17, GNA - Mr Moses Kwabena Atinga, Yendi District Secretary of the Ghana Registered Nurses' Association has said bonding of nurses would compound their existing frustrations rather than addressing the chronic brain drain threatening the country. Mr Atinga said nurses did not see the policy as the best option to solving the problem of the brain drain. "In the contrary, it will scare people from going into the profession," he held.

He was speaking at the launch of this year's Nurses Week at Yendi on Sunday. It was on the theme: "Nurses working with poor against poverty".

Activities lined up for the week, to mark the birth of the founder of nursing Florence Nightingale, include free medical care for selected institutions and communities, education on the National Health Insurance Scheme, HIV/AIDS, typhoid fever and tuberculosis.

Mr Atinga said there were only 80 nurses serving the 140,000 people in Yendi and other districts in the eastern corridor of the Northern Region, noting that the situation had brought pressure on them, resulting in poor attitude of some nurses towards patients.

Mr Mohammed Asibi Azonko, Yendi District Coordinating Director called on health workers to gear themselves up for the successful implementation of the Mutual Health Insurance Scheme.

He said: "Though the scheme is not a panacea for our health problems, it will certainly give a better assurance than the existing 'cash and carry' system".