Canada is providing support to Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), to increase paediatric nurse training and improve health outcomes for newborns and children in Ghana, Mr Lois Brown, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development announced in Toronto, Canada.

The five-year, Scaling Up Paediatric Nursing Care in Ghana initiative aims to strengthen health systems through training paediatric nurses and health care workers in the poorest underserved communities in Ghana.

A statement issued and copied to the Ghana News Agency, indicated that Mr Brown made the announcement at an event hosted by the Sickkids Centre for Global Child Health in Toronto Canada.

It is part of Canada’s on-going commitment to maternal, newborn and child health. It will also help Ghana’s Ministry of Health reach its target to train 1,500 paediatric nurse specialists over the next 10 to 15 years, to boost capacity to deliver child survival interventions.

According to the statement, the initiative builds on the success of a Canada-funded pilot project with SickKids that delivered innovative paediatric health worker training, and strengthened the capacity of paediatric health systems in Ghana, Ethiopia and Tanzania between 2009 and 2014.

The pilot project also established the first specialized paediatric nurse training program of its kind at the University of Ghana.

“Our government is proud of our successful partnership with SickKids in strengthening paediatric health systems by training health care workers to provide quality, cost-effective and sustainable nursing and midwifery care to newborns and children in Ghana,” said PS Brown.

“Scaling up our efforts will help improve the health and save the lives of even more Ghanaian newborns and children.”

The Scaling Up Paediatric Nursing Care in Ghana initiative will be implemented by SickKids, together with the Ghanaian Ministry of Health and the Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives, which was established by the Government of Ghana in response to the outcome of the pilot project, and to advance nursing and midwifery professionalism, practice and leadership in Ghana.

“This investment will have both an immediate and ongoing impact on child morbidity and mortality in Ghana,” said Dr. Jemima Dennis-Awi, President, Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives. “Nurses and midwives trained through this program go on to become leaders in their communities and active advocates for child health.”

The Harper government is committed to achieving the goal of ending preventable deaths of mothers and children within a generation. Increasing the number of well-trained nurses to strengthen health systems needed to deliver high-impact services to children and families in Ghana will help reach this goal.

“Improving the health of women and children in the developing world is Canada’s top international development priority,” said Minister Paradis. “Working with a wide range of partners to find new and innovative solutions to critical health challenges is key to saving lives.”

“This collaboration between SickKids, Canada and the Government of Ghana represents the importance of partnerships at the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health,” said Dr. Stanley Zlotkin, Chief, SickKids Centre for Global Child Health. “These partnerships are what allow us to participate in the scaling up of evidence-based interventions to improve health systems in areas that need them the most.”