The Student Nurse Distress, A Wake Up Call?
Nursing has been one of the most respected professions for centuries and recently the crave of the growing Ghanaian youth.
The life of every nursing student or potential medical practitioner after vacation is ‘clinical’ a mandatory practical knowledge acquisition session spanning at least a month to get equipped with how basic nursing care procedures are performed.
Few years ago students were so at will to be involved in clinical but the will changed recently when they were charged or billed to buy clinical materials including gloves, towels, hand sanitizers for their preferred facility before they are allowed to begin the school mandated practical session, for whatever reason is not known.
It is surprising, students who then received allowances from the government to cushion them up on their expenditures were not billed for same purpose and even received an incentive ‘token’ to commend their efforts after the period of practice.
The recent bad air that has saturated the various facilities subject students due for clinical to buy materials summing close to GHC 100.00 for their preferred facility before they are granted permission to begin practical session and to add salt to injury, there’s no incentive like previously.
What hurts most, 90% of these students board cars daily to be present for the clinical experience and the GHC 100 charged for items could have handled the travel expenditure.
My simple question is what changed? Must we always find ways to defraud people of their hard earned income before institutional leaders will be comfortable?
Ministry of Health/Ghana Health Service is so much aware of this development and yet doing nothing to reduce the burden on the average student forgetting Ghana suffers in the long run!
