Nurses urged to respect code of ethics

Nakori (UW), June 17, Ghanadot/GNA - Dr Kofi Issah, Deputy Upper West Regional Director of Health, on Wednesday appealed to nurses to strictly adhere to and respect their code of ethics in the discharge of their duties.

“The respect of code of ethics will also dissuade you from acting negatively to incur the displeasure and wrath of your clients in your various communities,” he said.

Dr Issah, who made this appeal during an inauguration of GH˘20,000 Community-based Health Planning and services (CHPS) compound at Nakori in the Wa Municipality, denounced nurses for engaging in unprofessional conducts such as shouting at patients and disclosure of health status of their patients.

“We even hear that some nurses in the communities grant leave to their colleagues to do other personal things and call them back anytime supervisors are visiting which will no longer be tolerated”.

He said the Ghana Health Service was designing a data to determine the activities of CHPS workers throughout the region as the training of more nurses for the programme was not seeing much improvement in their communities.

Mr Yakubu Duogo, Wa Municipal Chief Executive said the Assembly would this year spend a total of GH˘71,000 on the construction of two rural clinics at Boli and Kpongo in the Wa Municipality.

He said the Assembly last year spent a similar amount in constructing two separate CHPS compounds at Tampalipani and Bahamu also in the municipality and urged the people to make maximum use of the facilities.

Mrs Beatrice Kunfah, Wa Municipal Director of Health Services urged beneficiary communities to set up Community Emergency Transport system in their compounds to facilitate the movement of patients in critical conditions to referral hospitals near them.

She commended Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Catholic Relief Services (CRS), and UNICEF for their tremendous support to the Ghana Health Service, and appealed to other partners to come on Board to enhance effective health delivery in the municipality.

The CHPS compounds are meant to provide door-to-door service to patients in their homes and to also offer primary health care to the people in the rural areas, who hitherto would not have visited health facilities.

Under the programme, the communities are supposed to among other things provide security to resident nurses, offer communal labour for cleaning around the health facility, while the nurses are also to refer any case beyond them to the nearest hospital.

GNA