Fifty enrolled nurses and midwives from Sierra Leone have arrived in Ghana to undergo a two-year registered diploma course in Nursing and Midwifery.
This follows a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Ghana Nursing and Midwifery Council, the Ministry of Health and international health NGO, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The MoU was a result of a proposal made by Médecins Sans Frontières, to the Ministry of Health and the Nursing and Midwifery Council to offer and fund a bridging course for certificate nurses from Sierra Leone in Ghana.
The project, which starts in January 2018, will allow MSF, train the 50 nurses and midwives in two nursing and midwifery training schools; that’s Korle Bu and Koforidua, with each school admitting 25 trainees.
MSF is a leading emergency medical humanitarian organization providing assistance in about 70 countries around the world.
The official inaugural ceremony for the training of the 50 enrolled nurses and midwives was attended by the Health Minister Kwaku Agyemang Manu and his deputy, Tina Mensah.
Mr. Manu expressed confidence that the two year program will equip the trainees with enough skills to enable them provide quality health care to the people of Sierra Leone. He also congratulated the two nursing and midwifery training schools; that’s Korle Bu and Koforidua and MSF for making the project possible.
“We are all aware that Sierra Leone has undergone health crisis as a result of Ebola. It is my hope that after the nurses are done with this programme, they will return to Sierra Leone and help rebuild the country’s shuttered health service”.
Also present at the event were a deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, Mohammed Habib Tijani, Registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Felix Nyante, and officials from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
About the training program
The training project is part of MSF’s strategy to develop the required level of Human Resources for a proposed 160 bed Paediatric and Obstetric Hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone, which was hard hit during the Ebola outbreak.
More than 200 health workers from the district lost their lives during the epidemic.
Ghana was chosen by MSF due to the international standards of nursing and midwifery education, training and practice that are on offered.
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By: Pearl Akanya Ofori/citifmonline.com/Ghana