Martin Luther Health Training School enrols 150 students
The Martin Luther Health Training School in Accra has admitted a total of 150 students to undergo a two-year certificate course in health care.
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The students, who will take courses in health assistance clinical, laboratory technology and general health care, took the matriculation oath with lighted candles in hand in line with the tradition of the profession.
Attitude of nurses
After administering the matriculation oath, the Senior Operations Officer of the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Ghana, Mrs Agnes Oppong Baah, urged the trainees to be disciplined by adopting the correct attitudes towards work.
“In recent times, the public have been complaining about the attitude of nurses and midwives and health personnel in general,” she said.
She, therefore, advised the students to take their practical lessons seriously, saying “if you want to excel in your chosen career, please bear in mind that discipline is the hallmark of every career-oriented individual.’’
Sankofa slogan
Mrs Oppong Baah said the Council had decided to adopt the slogan, “Sankofa” which means “go back and fetch it”, as a form of campaign to encourage nursing and midwifery practitioners, including health assistants, to go back to the basic tenets of the profession.
The Director of the school, Dr Owusu Achaw Duah, said the school, which was established in 2007, had so far trained about 900 healthcare workers.
He said in the past six years, the institution had advanced from a school to a college and he was working on accreditation with the National Accreditation Board to run a full university soon.
According to him, the institute would then change its name to the Martin Luther College of Health Profession which would offer diploma courses in general nursing, medical laboratory sciences, medical imaging, health information technology and environment and safety health.
Challenges
On challenges encountered by the institution, Dr Duah mentioned the problems of placing students for practical attachment in government hospitals, lack of job opportunities after training and the rising cost of tuition fees.
He said the school was currently securing a parcel of land for the construction of a complex that would include a teaching hospital, where students could have practical training.
A board member of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Mrs Alice Darkoa Asare-Allotey, who was the guest speaker at the function, noted that there was the need to provide quality health services since there was competition for clients among the different categories of healthcare providers.
She said the providers included the government, quasi-government, Christian and Islamic healthcare providers, as well as traditional practitioners, all of whom are scrambling for clients.
“In the light of this competition, we need to satisfy our clients in order to retain them,” she said.
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