Agogo (Ashanti), 31st May 99 -

This year's regionalNurses' week in the Ashanti Region has been launched atAgogo with a call on nurses to be professionally well-equipped to enable them to meet the challenges of the next millennium.

This year's celebration which coincides with the centenary celebration of the international nurses day, focuses on the need for nurses to rise up to the emerging challenges of health care reforms worldwide.

Speaking at the launch, the deputy Director of AgogoNurses Training College, Miss Rose Boateng, said the current health care reforms has made the sector more competitive and dynamic.

She said this competitiveness and dynamism calls for nurses who are equipped with multiple skills as well as the ability to generate, process and transmit health information.

The Ashanti Regional chairperson of the Ghana Registered Nurses' Association (GRNA), Mrs Rose Owusu-Yeboah asked the Government to change its priority towards eradicating poverty and malnutrition.

Mrs Owusu-Yeboah described as alarming the nurse-patient ratio of 1 : 1,600 and called on the Government to do everything possible to expand the enrollment and training of nurses nation-wide.

Mr Kwaku Kyei, District Chief Executive of Asante-Akim North who stood in for the Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Kojo Yankah, called on nurses to crave for the humble, caring and compassionate attitude of Florence Nightingale "the mother of nursing".

Mr Kyei pledged the Government's support in improving nurses' accommodation problems, and enrolment into the Nurses Training Colleges.

GRi?/