‘We need more specialised nurses, midwives’
An associate professor in Nutrition at the University of Ghana, Prof Matilda Steiner-Asiedu, has underscored the need for the country to train more specialised nurses and midwives to promote better health care.
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"Better health outcomes require specialist training,” she said.
According to her, there were few specialised nurses in the country and so they could not reach all persons who needed specialised health care and attributed that situation to the lack of trained specialists.
She added that the diverse symptoms of diseases worldwide required "special kind of nurses" who had upgraded themselves in specific fields of managing patients.
Speaking at an inaugural, induction and matriculation ceremony of the Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives (GCNM) in Accra, Prof Steiner-Asiedu said new knowledge on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as by DigiSaver" href="#">diabetes
and cancer for example, called for the services of specialised nurses and healthcare professionals.
With regard to midwifery, she said it was important that care and management were reviewed, with special emphasis on antenatal and post-natal nurses, to promote the health of both mothers and their children.
Empower lecturers
She urged the college to empower lecturers to be abreast of current literature on the nursing and the midwifery professions, as well as collaborate with other institutions with similar objectives.
That, she said, would improve health outcomes, which would serve as a basis for enhancing or revising the teaching curricular for nurses and midwives.
Health initiatives
The Minister of Health, Dr Kwaku Agyeman-Mensah, commended nurses and midwives for their efforts at improving health delivery in many communities.
He inaugurated eight specialist programmes at the GCNM and indicated that appropriate specialist positions would be created for products of the college, as had been done for other professions.
The programmes include six courses within the division of nursing and two in midwifery.
GCNM
The President of the GCNM, Dr Jemima Araba Dennis-Antwi, said the mandate of the college was to train more specialised nurses and midwives to improve health delivery in the country.
The school runs courses such as Oncology, Accidents and Emergency, Neonatal Intensive Care and Women's Health.
In all, 330 foundation fellows were inducted, while 36 students, who formed the first batch, were admitted to the college.