Nalerigu (N/R), May 26, GNA- The East Mamprusi District Chief Executive, Mr David Konlaa, has urged the government to motivate nurses working in deprived districts of the Northern Region for them to provide quality service to the people.

He said: "The environment in which nurses operate, the economic and educational status of those they serve and the incentives they lose compared with their colleagues in the urban centres, call for motivation and support by all stakeholders".

Mr Konlaa was speaking at the launch of this year's "Nurses Week" of the Nalerigu Baptist Hospital branch of the Ghana Registered Nurses' Association at Nalerigu on Tuesday.

The theme for the celebration is: "Nurses working with the poor for poverty alleviation".

Programmes lined up for the week include a talk on the National Health Insurance Scheme, Typhoid, Fever and HIV/AIDS.

The DCE urged the nurses to intensify their public education to sensitise people in the communities to avoid self-medication. Mr Stephen Yiddi, a senior Nurse at the Hospital said nurses had always valued the idea of caring and caring was what had motivated a lot of people to have interest in nursing.

Mr Yiddi however noted that because of complex processes in the nursing and sometimes due to institutional demand, nurses often lost sight of the object of the care, which he said was the patient.

"We get ourselves so busy satisfying these things and forget of the patient who should be our centre of activities" he said, adding, "the unique functions of the nurse is to assist an individual patient to recover or to die peacefully".