International Nurses Day marked

Pg 44. Fri. May 22/08

Story: Rebecca Quaicoe Duho

THE Ghana Registered Nurses Association has celebrated this year’s International Nurses Day with a call on the government to formulate sound goal-oriented policies that will improve quality health care across the globe.
The government was also asked to carry out reforms that would ensure that nurses, who constitute a majority of health service providers, plan and execute programmes.
The President of the association, Mrs Alice Darkoa Asare-Allotey, who made the call in Accra on Monday, also said presently the healthcare sector had been bedevilled with challenges such as poverty, increased globalisation, climate change, food shortage and political unrest all of which affected health and service planning.
The International Nurses Day is commemorated on May 12 every year, which is also the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the mother of nursing. This year’s theme was “Delivering quality, serving communities: Nurses leading Primary Health Care”.
Mrs Asare-Allotey noted that despite the shift from hospital to community-based health services such as the Community-Based Health Planning Services, which is currently being practised in some communities in the country, critical challenges such as rising cost of health care, increasing consumer expectations and demands, changing demographic and ageing populations, the surge in chronic diseases, natural and man-made disasters and shortage of nurses and other health workers, still remained.
In an address read on her behalf by Dr Ebenezer Appiah Denkyira, the Director of Human Resources at the Ministry of Health, the Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Mrs Gladys Ashitey, said the global theme for the celebration was in tune with Ghana’s new direction of health care, which is regenerative health and nutrition.
She said, “The health sector is changing. We in the Ministry of Health are moving from a disease-centred approach of health care delivery to a system that will protect the health of individuals through the regenerative health and nutrition approach. An approach which incorporate fully the principles of primary health care.”
She further called on nurses to critically re-examine their ways and learn from their past mistakes and experiences and forge new partnerships and methods for meeting the challenges of building their professional capacities for the improvement of the health sector.
She was also of the view that the healthcare sector was presently in a challenging time, which required that nurses make more sacrifices to ensure that most people have access to better care.
Delivering the keynote address on the theme, the Director of the Tamale Teaching Hospital, Dr Ken Sagoe, said although achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of 2015 was half-way mark through, progress was not on track, saying that this required a renewed commitment to Primary Health Care both internationally and nationally.
The Queen of Korle We, Manye Naa Korle Adu, who chaired the launch, called on nurses to see the profession as a noble calling and discharge their duties accordingly.
Manye Adu, who is a nurse by profession, commended nurses in the country and also advised that they should endeavour to upgrade themselves periodically to meet challenges that they faced as they performed their duties.
The day was used to honour 16 nurses from across the country for their dedication and commitment to the nursing profession as part of the celebration.