NURSES CRY OUT

The leadership of the unemployed privately trained nurses at The Insight

By Duke Nii Amartey Tagoe

A decision by the National Health Service to short list only trained nurses from public institutions for employment has incurred the wrath of the Coalition of Unemployed Privately Trained Nurses and the membership of the Ghana Association of Health Training Institutions.

The trained nurses say they feel “cheated” and “discriminated” against!

John Nketsiah, one of the embittered nurses explained that the Ministry of Health recognizes that there are a number of accredited private health institutions which offer training in various fields of health care with very high standards and therefore considers it as unfortunate for the Ministry of Health to deprive them of employment after their many years of training.

The leadership of the over two thousand (2000) graduate nurses who stormed the offices of The Insight Newspaper also expressed outrage at the decision of the government to employ Junior High and Senior High students to serve as community health workers.

“We are shocked to learn that in spite of their awareness about our predicament, the government of Ghana through the Youth Employment Agency of the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service are recruiting JHS and SHS leavers to be trained and employed as community health workers.”

According to the graduate nurses, it beats their imagination that accreditation for training would-be-nurses are granted to qualified institutions to train nurses and upon graduation, they are refused employment merely on the basis that they were trained by a private health institution.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the over two thousand nurses have served notice to picket the Independence Square ahead of the Independence Day celebrations.

Editorial

Going Behind Good Policies

Ghana has been almost meticulous in signing good international social protection accords.

Over the years we have also adopted national policies and laws to back these.

But every now and then we come across reports that reveal that significant sections of the population are living in situations terribly worse than the minimum demanded by national policies and laws.

One such policy is the Free Maternal Health Programme, which is supposed to let pregnant women deliver in a healthy stress-free environment. A Survey of the reality, however, shows that the most vulnerable women are unable to access the services that have supposedly been tailored for them.

A number of them simply end up among the grim statistics of maternal health fatalities.

We have also come across reports that show that for significant sections of school-going age population, accessing school is a very difficult task because of duties expected of them on a daily basis. It is easy to say they should not be subjected to such arduous labour at such early ages, but the parents and guardians rarely see a choice in the matter as the labour of the children form an integral part of the family’s income.

A lot of people are aware of these facts, but appear helpless to address them.

The good news is that we have countries which have also shown that such issues can be addressed.

This is why we believe that it is not enough to lay down beautiful policies, but we should also endeavor to pursue the policies to ensure the achievement of the ultimate goals by tackling the hidden factors which make it difficult for good policies to be implemented.

MALARIA: Ghana Records 3.5 Million Cases Every Year

Alex Segbefia, Ghana's Health Minister

Ghana records 3.5 million cases of malaria every year, Mr Samuel Addo, Sunyani Municipal Disease Control Officer has disclosed.

Speaking at a day’s training on behavioral change communication and microscope for malaria diagnosis, Mr Addo said 900,000 of the malaria cases are recorded among children less than five years.

The training organised by the Hope for Future Generations (HFFG), a health centered, non-governmental organisation with support from the UK Aid and attended by 70 licensed chemical sellers and health care providers in the Municipality.

Mr. Addo advised chemical sellers and healthcare providers to ensure that perceived malaria cases are tested and proved positive before they are treated.

He said if uncomplicated malaria is not treated promptly and correctly, it progresses into severe form, which easily kills especially children.

Mr Addo noted that patients with uncomplicated malaria have fever, headache, chills, profuse sweating as well as bone pains and often very weak. They may also have nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, cough, particularly in children and loss of appetite.

Malaria is a communicable disease, he said, advising households to observe proper personal hygiene and good environmental sanitation to avoid the spread of the disease.

Mr Addo said malaria symptoms usually appear between nine to 14 days after the bite of infective female Anopheles mosquitoes.

Mrs Rose Balaaboore, Project Coordinator of the HFFG, an organisation working to improve on the socioeconomic status of women and children explained that the training was in line with a six-month project the NGO is implementing in 100 communities in 10 districts and municipalities in the region.

Beneficiary communities are Sunyani, Wenchi and Techiman municipalities, Sunyani West, Dormaa East, Jaman North, Jaman South, Asutifi North, Tain and Banda districts.

Mrs Balaaboore explained that malaria treatment based on diagnostic testing is good clinical practice and has many advantages over presumptive treatment of all fever episodes.

Presumptive treatment of malaria, she indicated has adverse effects on patients as administration of malaria drugs without diagnostic test leads to drug resistance.

GNA

Editorial

MALARIA

The revelation that as many as 3.5 million cases of malaria are reported in Ghana annually must be exceedingly shocking.

This is because malaria can be eradicated and many countries, including the Island state of Cuba have managed to achieve that feat.

Why is Ghana not learning from the example of countries which have managed to defeat malaria given the fact that it is a killer disease which can drastically slow down productivity?

We recall that Ghana entered into an agreement with Cuba to eradicate malaria  and as a result the Cuban enterprise Labiofam started operations here.

What has happened to that project?

We urge the Ghanaian authorities to take real practical steps to eradicate malaria which has serious consequences for national economic development.