Emulate Florence Nightingale’s example:First Lady urges health workers

The First Lady, Mrs Lordina Mahama, has called on nurses and other health professionals to emulate the good example of Florence Nightingale, the mother of nursing, by showing compassion, civility and politeness to patients who visit their facilities for care.

She said the ‘Lady of the Lamp’ as Florence Nightingale was affectionately called, worked under more terrible conditions than current nurses and yet she worked very hard and healed the sick with kindness and compassion.

Speaking at the presentation of an X-ray machine to the Jasikan District Hospital at Jasikan in the Volta Region last Friday, Mrs Mahama said health workers might overwork themselves, but a smile or a kind word was a great encouragement to patients, which can make them feel hopeful that they would get well.

It was Mrs Mahama’s view that positive attitude to work, shown through humility and politeness, could help more patient to recover. The X-ray machine, donated to the hospital by the Lordina Foundation and its partners, MedShare of the USA, is expected to benefit over 65,000 people in Jasikan and its surrounding communities.

The presentation forms part of a number of medical supplies and equipment which the Lordina Foundation, with its partners, has been presenting to hospitals, clinics and healthcare centres in the country since becoming First Lady in 2011.

Quality healthcare

The First Lady said the donation of the equipment would enable the Jasikan District Hospital to diagnose patients more accurately and determine their ailments through the scans done with the machine.

She noted that the absence of a functioning X-ray machine at the district hospital meant that people had to travel as far as to Hohoe, to have their X-rays taken before diagnosis was made. That obviously had placed severe inconveniences on the patients who patronised the hospital.

Mrs Mahama appealed to  healthcare providers to encourage patients to avail themselves of the services available in health facilities.

Lordina Foundation

Mrs Mahama said the foundation had conducted health screening programmes across the country, giving some members of the public, especially women, the opportunity to know their health status.

Beneficiaries, she said, had the opportunity to test for diseases such as hypertension, HIV, diabetes, hepatitis B, and cervical cancer and added that a healthy community was an empowered community which would contribute to the development of the country.

Commendation

The Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Victor Asare Bampoe, commended the foundation for complementing government’s effort in providing quality health care to the people.

He said the government alone could not provide all the basic amenities and so  would welcome collaborations such as that of the Lordina Foundation. He called on other charitable organisations, institutions, non- governmental organisations and philanthropists to emulate the gesture.

The Medical Superintendent of the hospital, Dr Fedelis Atia, said the health facility, since it was upgraded to the status of a hospital 13 years ago, had seen little improvement in terms of infrastructure.

Currently, he said, the hospital had no mortuary or ambulance so dead bodies were kept in the wards with patients until their relatives made arrangements to pick them up.

He said the hospital had no separate wards for males, females and children and so all inpatients shared the only general ward with a bed capacity of 45 and that did not give the patients privacy or dignity.

Dr Atia, however, expressed gratitude to the government and the district assembly for the multi-purpose maternity block currently under construction.

The acting Paramount Chief of the Buem Traditional Area, Nana Opraw Akuamoah VIII, on behalf of the people, thanked the foundation for the gesture, which, he said, had addressed a critical health need.