To address the country’s growing health care needs, health training institutes at all levels will soon be modernized to offer a four-year bachelor’s degree program, according to the Ministry of Health.
The goal, according to Hannah Akua Oparebea Acquah, Rector of the College of Nursing and Midwifery, is to make a bachelor’s degree the minimum requirement for practicing nurses and midwives, with diploma and certificate holders being phased out.
She was presenting on behalf of Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu at the Conference of Heads of Health Training Institutions (COHHETI14th )’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Koforidua, East Africa.
Hannah Oparebea Acquah, in her address to the audience, noted that a stakeholder dialogue will be held shortly to develop policies as part of efforts to upgrade all health training institutes to full-fledged tertiary schools.
This, she argues, will assist satisfy the shifting demands of the public.
“As we are all aware, there are calls for upgrade of health Institutions into the tertiary status to improve nursing and midwifery training education and also to meet the changing health care needs of the public. This means that eventually, a first degree will be the minimum requirement at any level of our health education system.
“To achieve this feat, there should be a broader stakeholder consultation and engagement that will see to the development of a policy that will make all health training fully-fledged tertiary institutions” she explained
