By Godfred A. Polkuu
Bolgatanga, Oct. 26, GNA – The Conference of Heads of Health Training Institutions (COHHETI) has called on stakeholders to plan for the right type of workforce to reflect the shifting landscape of healthcare and the increasing complexity of cases.
The COHHETI said the 89 Health Training Institutions (HTIs) should be accredited to train kidney nurses, neonatal, paediatric, infectious disease, ophthalmic and emergency nurses among others to address the changing trends of health conditions in the country.
Madam Margaret Mary Alacoque, the President of the COHHETI, who made the call, said the training of nurses should not just be the one-way Community Health Nursing, General Nursing and Midwifery training programmes.
She emphasized the need for the HTIs to train specialist nurses to address the changing complexities of health conditions in the various healthcare facilities.
“We are in an era of increasing numbers of communicable and non-communicable diseases. We need to start preparing before another pandemic hits,” Madam Alacoque said when she addressed the 16th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the COHHETI in Bolgatanga, the Upper East Regional capital.
The meeting, Chaired by the Paramount Chief of the Sakoti Traditional Area, Naba Sigri Bewong, was themed: “Quality Assurance and Accreditation in the Training of Healthcare Professionals: The Anchor for Quality Education.”
Madam Alacoque said if the bedrock of the health professionals were well-trained, they would be equipped with the right competencies to serve the citizenry across the healthcare facilities.
She said although the HTIs churned out several professionals including Nutritionists, Physiotherapy, Physician Assistants, nurses midwives among others, who constituted more than half of the human resources of the healthcare delivery system, the COVID-19 global pandemic created workforce deficits.
The COHHETI President said health professionals were leaving the country for greener pastures and appealed to the Ministry of Health for migration policies that would benefit the country.
“Specifically, a plough back in developing the health training institutions,” she said would be beneficial to the country.
Madam Alacoque used the occasion to appeal for vehicles for HTIs across the country saying “The last time HTIs received vehicles was in 2015, Navara pickups which are eight years old. Most of them are not road-worthy.
“They break down on the roads, Principles have to join public transport with official documents. A few schools are able to buy vehicles on high purchase. What about the smaller schools,” the COHHETI President said.
The COHHETI also expressed displeasure about some hospitals and Clinicians who charged students before they were accepted for clinical placement, “The situation is worse with the Allied Health Schools like Colleges of Health, Kintampo and Yamfo.
“Some of their preceptors demand higher amounts or some even charge per hour, per student. Again, COHHETI humbly requests the Ministry of Health to solve this challenge,” Madam Alacoque said.
Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, the Minister of Health, in a speech read on his behalf, said a unit was created at the Ministry of Health to serve the interest of the HTIs.
He said the Ministry would continue to guide and support Principals of the HTIs to champion the agenda of training the middle-level health cadets for the health sector in the country.
Mr Agyeman-Manu said over 700 Tutors were recruited by the Ministry to beef up the Tutor-student ratio of the HTIs, “It does not just end with the recruitment, it also ends with capacity building because these are staff at the clinical area who have extensive clinical experience but lack what it takes to teach in the classroom.
“So the Ministry has arranged with one of our Universities to run a Master of Education for teaching in higher education for all the over 700 people,” the Health Minister said.
GNA