Nurses will hold President Mahama accountable on health promises – GRNA

The Ghana Registered Nurses Association (GRNA) said on Tuesday it expected the new government to provide the needed resources that would motivate health personnel to work towards the attainment of MDGs 4, 5 and 6.

Mr Kwaku Asante-Krobea, President of the GRNA in an interview with the GNA in Accra said, to be able to achieve drastic reduction of infant mortality, maternal mortality and reduction in HIV and AIDS infections as required under MDGs 4, 5 and 6 respectively, by 2015, nurses in particular who were the fore runners in health care services, should be given the needed incentives to work harder to attain the needed health benefits.

Mr Asante-Krobea said the Association welcomed President John Mahama as the new President of Ghana and stressed that health professionals would hold the new President accountable to the commitment and promises he made towards the health sector at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) encounter during the presidential debates.

He noted that health professionals like nurses working in the hard-to-reach areas in ensuring that people got adequate health care particularly, through the Community Health Implementation Programmes (CHIPs) compound services must be well taken care of.

He said such nurses for instance faced challenges like lack of transportation, potable water, electricity and “even mobile services which is critical for communication and all of these needs to be addressed by the government within the shortest and medium term levels”.

Mr Asante-Krobea said nurses and midwives by the nature of their work fell sick often through infections picked at the hospitals and that 43 per cent of illness reported by nurses and midwives were acquired through infections at the hospitals and 31 per cent of such cases were mostly back pains.

“This demands free absolute health care for all nurses and midwives, the largest victims of hospital acquired infections”, he indicated.

Meanwhile, Mr Asante-Krobea has asked government to ensure that all the drugs on the National Health Insurance drug list were provided at the various hospitals to enable providers to give the right medication to clients.

He also stressed that constant review of the drug list to cover a lot more drugs and specific services being provided by service providers.

Source: GNA