The Principal of the Zuarungu Nursing and Midwifery Training College (ZNMTC), Mr Michael Yidana Mantamia, has expressed worry about the lack of infrastructure for teaching and learning, saying it was bedevilling the progress of the college.
He said the execution of a classroom and dining hall projects, both Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) projects which commenced three years ago, had stalled due to lack of funds.
According to him, limited hostel facilities, lack of befitting computer laboratory required urgent intervention, and called on government, the alumni of the school and other development partners to support the college.
The Principal registered these concerns at the maiden graduation, as well as the 11th, 5th and 18th matriculation of Registered General Nursing (RGN), Post-Nurse Assistant Clinicals or Post-Nurse Assistant Prevention Midwifery (POST NAC/NAP Midwifery) and Nurse Assistant Clinicals (NAC) held in Zuarungu, capital of the Bolgatanga East District of the Upper East Region, over the weekend.
The congregation was held under the theme “Quality Nursing and Midwifery Education: The Role of Stakeholders”.
Mr Mantamia explained the infrastructure setback compelled the school to admit just 513 students out of over 1000 applicants shortlisted for interviews to undertake programmes in RGN, RM and Post NAC/NAP Midwifery.
Nevertheless, he said, the institution was making judicious use of its meagre Internally Generated Fund (IGF) for the construction of an ultramodern two storey skills laboratory, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) laboratory and a computer laboratory complex.
“As we may know, the current licensing examination organised by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (N&MC) of Ghana is an online exam, hence a state-of-the-art ICT lab is a basic requirement for the student to be able to take this exam.
Currently, students have to write the exam in about four batches, which has a great tendency to affect their performance, owing to the inadequacy of space,” he lamented.
As he lobbied government and its development partners to support the school with the construction of a 200-bed capacity hostel and intervene in tacking other infrastructure issues to befit the status of the school, he advised the graduands to take nursing and other health-related jobs seriously by shunning attitudes that had the tendency to cast a slur on the image of the profession.
“With the concept of Universal Health Coverage by 2030, which reflects the Sustainable Development Goals, I urge all of you (graduands) to play your roles wherever you find yourself towards the achievements of this compact,” the Principal admonished.
A guest speaker at the programme, Dr Vida Nyagre Yakong, Foundation Dean for the School of Nursing and Midwifery, charged the graduands to endeavour to uphold and maintain ethical standards of the health profession, saying they owed the country every responsibility and standard of care to take the profession far and wide.
The University Dean said she had observed some health institutions in the country had lowered standards in the academic work, as there was an upsurge in unprofessional and academic misconduct during examinations.
The resultant effect of this misconduct, she noted, was the churning out of half-baked health practitioners, and called on the NMC to purge quack health training schools which directly or indirectly encouraged such practice.
For his part, the Deputy Minister of Health, Alhaji Mahama Asei Seini, said government would not hesitate to grant financial clearance so as to get trained health personnel get recruited into the health facilities to meet the needs of ‘Agenda 111’.
Alhaji Seini, who doubles as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Daboya/Mankarigu, also pledged government was working to effect payment for the training allowances of nursing trainees by the close of November this year, adding, “The first piece of the allowance will be paid. The others will be paid in the subsequent months.”
Out of the 107 graduates (2023 year group), fourteen were recognised for distinguishing themselves in some courses in the final exams, with Erica Abugre and Fidaus Abubakar emerging as overall best student and best-behaved student respectively.
FROM FRANCIS DABRE, ZUARUNGU