Nurses Push For The Removal Of St. John Of God Nursing Principal

The Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) has called on the Government to remove from office the Principal of St. John of God Nursing Training College since he has no nursing or midwifery background.

A communiqué issued by the GRNMA at its 16th Biennial National Delegates' Conference and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday said the Principal must be removed from office latest by January 1, 2018.

The St. John of God Nursing Training College is located at Sefwi Asafo in the Western Region.

The communique, signed jointly by Dr Kwaku Asante-Krobea, the President of the GRNMA and Mrs Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo, the General Secretary, said: ''If he is still at post by the said date, the GRNMA will advice itself.

"We recommend that future appointees to that position must have nursing or midwifery background,'' it said.

The conference was on the theme: "Overhauling Nursing and Midwifery Education: Prospects for Professionalism and Quality Care".

The communiqué highlighted major concerns of the GRNMA, which it appealed to the Government to act on with immediate effect, which include the full implementation of the Collective Agreement between GRNMA and its allies and the Ministry of Health (MOH) and its agencies.

It said all allowances agreed upon, including fuel allowance and rural incentive allowance, must be paid with immediate effect.

It called on the MOH and its agencies to adequately resource health facilities across the country with the necessary logistics and human resource for the delivery of safe and quality health care.

"In this regard, we call on government to employ graduate nurses and midwives who are still awaiting engagement by the Ministry of Health and its agencies.

"We commend government for its effort to reimburse service providers under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS); however the delay in the reimbursement is crippling some hospitals and bringing in the menace of Cash and Carry system, which negatively impacts patient care. We, therefore, entreat government to speed up the reimbursement of health facilities with their NHIS claims.

"We also commend the Government for retaining the Nursing and Midwifery Directorate at the Ministry of Health per the request made by the GRNMA and its allies and call for expeditious completion of the processes to make the nursing and midwifery directorate permanent at the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service.''

The communiqué appealed to the Government to phase out all the nursing and midwifery certificate programmes by December, 2019 and upgrade all those in the system to the diploma level through a well-structured programme to ensure the diploma level became the minimum entry point into the nursing and midwifery professions.

It called on the MOH to fast track the processes of getting accreditation for the Post Basic Midwives to be awarded diploma certificates upon completion of their training.

The communiqué called on the MOH to upgrade certificate nurses and midwives who successfully went through the diploma programme to the grade of Senior Staff Nurse or Midwife.

It also called for the upgrading of Senior Staff Nurses and Senior Staff Midwives who were serving officers and pursuing degree programmes to be upgraded to Senior Nursing or Senior Midwifery Officer.

The communiqué said the MOH and its agencies should immediately release the results of the Deputy Directors of Nursing Services promotion interviews conducted last year, which had been on hold for the past year adding that government must pay all outstanding salary arrears of nurses and midwives by March, 2018.

It said the state of mental health in Ghana left much to be desired with the Mental Health Authority receiving very little or no support.

''We, therefore, call on government to make available adequate budgetary allocation to the Authority to enable it to function fully and be in a better position to resource the only three mental health facilities in the country and ensure the safety of nurses taking care of the patients.

"The security of nurses and midwives at their work places across the country has been compromised in recent times. We, therefore, call on heads of health facilities to institute measures that will ensure the safety of all health professionals, especially nurses and midwives.

The communiqué said Community Health Nurses got involved in many motor bike accidents in line of duty, which resulted in precious lives being lost, and called on the MOH to insure all motor bikes used by nurses and midwives in preventive healthcare and give them the requisite training to save lives.

It called on the Government to ensure the enforcement of sanitation laws in the country to improve on sanitation in the cities and towns.

The communiqué urged the public to go for regular medical check-ups and to be circumspect in the patronage of herbal preparations, of which many had not been approved by the Food and Drugs Authority.

GNA