BEREKUM NURSING COLLEGE HOLDS 11TH MATRICULATION (PAGE 11)

THE 11th matriculation ceremony of the Berekum Nursing and Midwifery Training College in the Brong Ahafo Region took place at the weekend.
In all 141 students made up of 54 males and 87 females who have been admitted for the 2008/09 academic year matriculated. One hundred and two candidates, will be pursuing Nursing and 39 will pursue Midwifery programmes.
Out of 1,600 applications received for the Nursing and Midwifery programmes, 517 candidates were qualified to be admitted, but 431 candidates turned up for the selection interview and after the screening exercise, the 141 were admitted.
The Catholic Bishop of Sunyani, the Most Rev. Matthew Akwasi Gyamfi, reminded the students of the noble profession they had chosen and urged them to be prepared to serve the sick during and after their training.
He urged them to live up to their matriculation oath and be committed to the tenets and ethics of their profession to serve mankind.
Most Rev. Akwasi Gyamfi called on health workers to be ministers of life and be professionals in the discharge of their duties in order to avoid being known as agents of death.
According to him, the health profession, especially nursing, was a ministry and therefore every health worker should be alert and sympathetic to the plight of patients to help save their lives.
He urged all health workers, particularly nurses, to see their profession as a call by God and the need for them to show God’s love, saying that some patients had died because health workers, especially nurses, who have been trained to give proper attention to them had been impatient with them and not treated them well.
He said since nurses served as the face of every health institution and the first port of call in hospitals, they must put up pleasant faces at all times, show concern, be patient and give the sick all the assistance they need, since that could help cure somebody of his or her illness.
The Principal of BNMTC, Ms Monica Nkrumah, said the students were selected after a thorough scrutiny of the results they obtained at the West Africa Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and a check from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).
The principal said the total enrolment at the college stood at 391, comprising 156 males and 235 females.
She said the college needed more tutors, a resource library to help enhance teaching and learning, a bus to convey students to and from field work, staff accommodation and a stand-by generator to help the college realise its mission of producing quality nurses and midwives.
A speech read on behalf of the Registrar of the Nurses and Midwives Council (NMC), Mr Ampem Darko Oklodu Abbey, said the nursing and midwifery training and standard practices in Ghana was governed by Law, NRCD 117 and LI 683.
He urged the students to be guided by the training and education they would receive when dealing with patients, adding that as nurses and midwives there was the need to demonstrate good interpersonal relationship by handling patients in a manner that would make them feel comfortable, secured and relaxed.