The Ministry of Health (MOH) is bringing back the idea of training Community Health Nurses (CHN) to manage the various Community-based Health Planning and Service (CHPS) compounds which are mostly centred in rural areas.
The move, the Ministry believes, would promote primary healthcare in deprived communities since health professionals mostly refused posting to such areas due to lack of basic utilities such as potable water, electricity and internet services.
Nana Adjei-Mensah, Chief Director of MOH, disclosed this yesterday at the 2019 Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOIC) and Korea Foundation for International Healthcare (KOFIH) forum in Accra.
The joint forum brought together health practitioners and alumni to share best practices and experiences in the health sector in Ghana.
Mr Adjei-Mensah said CHPS compounds basically need advanced nurses or midwifery that were committed to serve their people.
“In the olden days we useD to have what we call the Community Nurses and this is something the Ministry is thinking to bring it back.
Because if you take a nurse from Accra and she is posted to a village to go and manage a CHPS compound, it sometimes becomes a problem, but if the nurse is picked from the community and trained, they are happy to go back and serve their people,” he said.
Mr Adjei-Mensah was hopeful the recruitment and training of community nurses would help achieve the purpose for which CHPS compounds were introduced.
He explained that, CHPS facilities was a national strategy to deliver essential community-based services involving health planning and service delivery within the communities.
The Director added that its primary focus was communities in deprived sub-districts to bring health services close to the communities.
Mr Adjei-Mensah said currently, the MoH has recruited about 54,000 healthcare professional who were posted to various public health facilities.
He said some of the newly recruited were posted to manage CHPS facilities in remote areas across the country.
The Korea Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Sungsoo Kim mentioned healthcare, education and agricultural as their key priority in supporting Ghana’s economy.
He said over the years, Korea had trained lots of Ghanaian health professionals to acquire more knowledge and skills to improve healthcare delivery.
“Aside the training of health personnel, Korea through its various agencies had built CHPS compound as well as brought some Korean health professionals to enhance healthcare delivery in the country,” he said.
BY BERNARD BENGHAN