Council inducts newly qualified nurses, midwives in Accra
The Nursing and Midwifery Council of Ghana (NMC) yesterday inducted 5,597 newly qualified nurses and midwives from the southern part of the country at a ceremony in Accra.
The inductees are part of the total 22,000 nurses and midwives who are expected to be inducted into service across the country, after they passed the Council’s Licensing Examination last year.
By their induction, the newly qualified midwives, nurses and nurse assistants from the Greater Accra, Eastern and Volta regions, have been duly issued with certificates and licensed to practise the profession.
At the induction ceremony, the Registrar of the NMC, Mr Felix Nyante, said a similar event was expected to take place in the middle belt, Southern Zone B and northern Ghana for the newly qualified nurses and midwives in those areas.
He explained that the Greater Accra, Eastern and Volta regions form Southern Zone A; Central and Western regions, Southern Zone B; Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions, the Middle Belt and the Upper East, Upper West and Northern regions, the Northern Zone.
Midwife honoured
At the ceremony, a midwife, Ms Sophia Sulemana, with the Kunkua Healthcare Centre in the Mamprugu Moaduri District in the Northern Region, who delivered a pregnant woman of a baby boy at 3 a.m while on board an Accra-Bolgatanga bus on September 23, 2018, was honoured.
She was presented with a motorbike and midwife’s kits to facilitate her work, as well as a citation.
According to her, she had no gloves and had to improvise with polythene bags as gloves to receive the baby.
She got a blade from a passenger to cut the umbilical cord of the baby and pulled out a string from a sack to tie the cord.
Commendation
In an address, the Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, commended Ms Sulemana for her dedication to service in delivering the pregnant woman of the a baby boy in the bus and urged others to learn from her example.
He said the happening had also brought to the fore, the need for first aid to be incorporated into the public transport system and urged the various authorities to ensure that drivers had it as part of the road safety requirements.
Touching on the country’s healthcare system, Mr Agyeman-Manu said it had undergone lots of changes over the years, however, one daunting challenge was the need for the right number of adequately trained healthcare workers to be posted to the right places.
With the country’s population growing at a rapid rate, he said, there was the need to improve the healthcare system by having more health professionals who were better prepared to care for multiple chronic conditions in all settings.
Specialised nurses
Mr Agyeman-Manu also underscored the need for specialised nurses and midwives, saying that “the country has a few specialised nurses and midwives, making it difficult to reach all persons who need specialised healthcare.”
Touching on the newly introduced licensing examination for nursing and midwifery candidates, Mr Agyeman-Manu said he was in approval of it, and described it as effective and credible.
Advising the newly-qualified nurses and midwives, the minister impressed on them to be innovative and continuously acquire more knowledge in order not to remain stale in their profession.