Canada supports Ghana’s Paediatric Nursing Care programme
Canada is providing support to Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) to increase paediatric nurse training and improve health outcomes for newborns and children in Ghana, Mr Lois Brown, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development, announced in Toronto, Canada.
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The five-year Scaling-up Paediatric Nursing Care in Ghana initiative aims to strengthen health systems through training paediatric nurses and healthcare workers in the poorest underserved communities in Ghana.
A statement issued and copied to the Ghana News Agency indicated that Mr Brown made the announcement at an event hosted by the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health in Toronto, Canada.
It is part of Canada’s ongoing commitment to maternal, newborn and child health. It will also help Ghana’s Ministry of Health reach its target to train 1,500 paediatric nurse specialists over the next 10 to 15 years to boost its capacity to deliver child survival interventions.
Canada-funded pilot project
According to the statement, the initiative builds on the success of a Canada-funded pilot project with SickKids that delivered innovative paediatric health worker training and strengthened the capacity of paediatric health systems in Ghana, Ethiopia and Tanzania between 2009 and 2014.
The pilot project also established the first specialised paediatric nurse training programme of its kind at the University of Ghana.
“Our government is proud of our successful partnership with SickKids in strengthening paediatric health systems by training healthcare workers to provide quality, cost-effective and sustainable nursing and midwifery care to newborns and children in Ghana.
“Scaling up our efforts will help improve the health and save the lives of even more Ghanaian newborns and children”, said Mr Brown.
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The Scaling-up Paediatric Nursing Care in Ghana initiative will be implemented by SickKids, together with the Ministry of Health and the Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives, which was established by the Government of Ghana in response to the outcome of the pilot project and to advance nursing and midwifery professionalism, practice and leadership in Ghana.
“This investment will have both an immediate and ongoing impact on child morbidity and mortality in Ghana,” said Dr Jemima Dennis-Awi, President, Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives.
Training nurses and midwives
“Nurses and midwives trained through this programme go on to become leaders in their communities and active advocates for child health”, the doctor said.
The Canadian Government is committed to achieving the goal of ending preventable deaths of mothers and children within a generation. Increasing the number of well-trained nurses to strengthen health systems needed to deliver high-impact services to children and families in Ghana will help reach this goal.
“This collaboration between SickKids, Canada and the Government of Ghana represents the importance of partnerships at the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health,” said Dr Stanley Zlotkin, Chief, SickKids Centre for Global Child Health.
“These partnerships are what allow us to participate in the scaling up of evidence-based interventions to improve health systems in areas that need them the most”.