Dr Razak Dokurugu, Deputy Regional Director of Health Services in charge of Clinical Care, in Upper East Region has called on nurses and midwives to be guided by the core values of the Ghana Health Service (GHS)

He said “let’s not the general public hear of us when we are in the news for the negative reasons such as strikes, demonstrations, and accusations of professional misconduct.”

Dr Dokurugu said nurses and midwives could contribute to the realization of health as a human right issue by strictly and constantly adhering to the GHS code of conduct as well as the core values of people centeredness, professionalism, team work, innovation, discipline and integrity.

Dr Dokurugu was speaking at the launch of this year’s International Nurses Day Celebration in Bolgatanga. The event was on the theme; “Nurses and midwives, promoting health as a human right.”

He said “it is sometimes disheartening when we face some unprecedented bullets from the general public as though we are not working. In spite of all the efforts that we are putting to bring quality health care to the general population, lot still remains to be done.”

The theme for the celebration could only be achieved if we adhered to, and moderated ourselves as individuals and as an Association guided by the core values of the GHS,” he said explaining that the celebration offered nurses and midwives the rare opportunity to demonstrate commitment to engage the general public and to create appropriate rapport essential for quality health care.

Dr Dokurugu said the celebration was a glorious opportunity for nurses and midwives to show concern and commitment to ensuring health as a universal right for human beings and added that health as a human right issue was the dictate of the United Nations Organization (UNO) and so nurses and midwives could not afford to sit on the fence while they matched towards universal health coverage.

Mr Thomas Lambon, the Upper East Regional Chairman of the GRNMA, said the decline in the standard of nursing and midwifery, could be attributed to multiplicity of shortfalls in the nursing profession, and noted that the outcome had negative implications on the quality of health care.

Mr Lambon said the resolve to establish quality nursing and midwifery care had become a difficult task between the GRNMA and government because government had always delayed in honouring its obligation to help the Association resolve its challenges.

He noted that government’s delay to employ graduate nurses and midwives to augment the nurse-patient ratio of 1:18, unavailability of required equipment for quality health care and government’s inability to make full payment of promotion arrears as some of the challenges confronting the Association.

The Chairman described as tragedy the fortunes of their relationship with the employer, and said it had the potency to disharmonize the labour front, adding that “we consider this development as grossly de-motivating and counterproductive to quality health care.”