Redistribute health personnel — Northern Regional Minister
The Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru Limuna, has urged the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to undertake a staff rationalisation programme to ensure the fair distribution of health professionals across the country.
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He noted that the country did not have a problem of inadequate nurses and other health professionals but rather suffered from the over concentration of health personnel in the urban areas, instead of being posted to deprived communities where their services were most needed.
He, therefore, called on the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the GHS to ensure a redistribution of health personnel to attain the objective of quality healthcare delivery.
Alhaji Limuna made the call at the induction ceremony for the 2013 and 2014 batches of newly qualified nurses and midwives in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions into the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Ghana (NMC) in Tamale yesterday.
Induction ceremony
In all, 1,882 newly qualified nurses and midwives, comprising registered general nurses (RGN), registered mental nurses (RMN), registered community nurses (RCN) and registered midwives, took the oath of the NMC, administered by Hajia Mariama Sumani, the Board Chairperson of the council, at the ceremony to usher them into full professional practice.
Political interference
Alhaji Limuna appealed to his colleague politicians and other prominent members of society to desist from interfering with the posting of nurses and other health professionals in the country.
He said undue and unnecessary interference had been a major contributory factor to the situation where rural and deprived areas lacked nurses and other health professionals.
Appeal
The Registrar of the NMC, Mr Felix Nyante, earlier in a welcome address, appealed to the inductees to accept posting to areas where their services were needed most, adding that information available to the council was that there was a shortage of midwives at Yendi.
He said the situation was said to be so dire that retired midwives had to be re-engaged.
He also expressed concern over examination malpractice which was creeping into licensing examinations and cautioned that anyone found culpable would not be spared.
He said nationwide 6,800 newly qualified nurses and midwives were expected to be inducted into professional practice by the NMC by the end of next week.