Abednego David
12 November 2009
The President of the West Africa College of Nursing (WACN), Mrs. Dedeh Jones has blamed the drastic decline in the standard of the nursing education and practice in the country to the employment of "unqualified medical personnel' who do not meet the basic standard of the profession.
This development, according to her, has begun to show negatively in the management of the healthcare and in the confidence of patients in the hospitals, health centers and clinics, which she says has caused, many of them to return to the search for alternative cure. Madam Jones made the revelation when she spoke on Monday, November 9, 2009 during the opening of the 33rd General and Scientific Meeting of the West African College of Physicians held in the Samuel Kanyon Doe sport complex in Paynesville.
"I 'm calling on Employers of medical personnel to invest on the quality rather than the quantity by ensuring that their employees received regular training or they should be retrained,." she cautioned employers of medical personnel.
Addressing herself to the fulfillment of the government's Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which has reduction of maternal mortality by 2015 as one of its target programs, she stressed that if the government was to achieve this goal, it needs to partner with the nurses, and added "We can only change the MDG, if we employ trained and skilled nurses and mid-wives in health facilities with adequate remuneration."
But, observers say the bottom-line is the failure or inability of government to pay health professional amount that commensurate with their skills and qualification, and as a result they sign on to other areas where the income is vastly encouraging.
However, Mrs. Jones lauded the organizers of the Meeting, which according to her, was taking place at the very critical period when the government and its international partners are trying to reduce maternity mortality by half by 2015.
Commenting on the flight of professional nurses to the Western countries, the worried health professional attributed the brain-drain to authority's failure to provide employment opportunity for them. Another factor, according to her, is the low salary health workers are getting from the government or the private sectors.
"Look, we have just licensed about 430 nurses. Are they going to let them go again; or will they be employed or left alone?" She wondered. On the improvement of the West African College of Nursing and the West African Health Organization, the President noted that both institutions have managed to harmonize the English version of basic nursing , basic midwifery, and the advanced diploma in Ophthalmic Nursing Curriculum.
Also, she said they have integrated the Francophone countries into the College, and that they have commenced the Francophone curriculum. "We are making headways to improving nursing education in sub- Saharan Africa in order to improve the quality of healthcare," she promised.
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