Nursing school halts admissions due to lack of classrooms
The Atibie Midwifery Training College has not admitted any student to pursue the Health Assistants Clinical (HAC) programme since 2010, Mrs Paulina Osabutey, Principal of the school has said.
She said the institution suspended intake of students for the HAC programme because of inadequate classroom infrastructure.
“Our inability to run the HAC programme over the last three years has adversely affected the people of the Kwahu Ridge and the adjoining communities since most of the youth, who could not make the grades for the diploma programmes, have been deprived of the opportunity to at least enroll for the certificate in HAC programme”.
Mrs Osabutey, who was speaking at the second graduation of the 2007/2012 batch of Midwifery/HAC of the College at Atibie, noted that the problem had also impacted negatively on the availability and the distribution of needed nursing human resources across health facilities in the Eastern Region.
That she said was because the facility was the only one in the region, which trains Post Enrolled Nursing (EN), Community Health Nursing (CHN), Midwifery and the Health Assistants to feed health facilities in the region.
“We, therefore, need additional classroom structures with the capacity to accommodate about 300 students as a matter of urgency not only to correct this apparent imbalance and shortage of nursing personnel in the region, but more importantly to provide the youth in the area with practical employable skills that can be deployed for the benefit of the communities”.
Mrs Osabutey, therefore, appealed to the Ministry of Health, through the Regional Minister, the Regional Health Directorate, the Kwahu South District Assembly and their partners who desire to see quality nursing and midwifery to come to their aid and take immediate steps to put up a classroom block for the College.
The Principal indicated that sound academic discipline and quality training of nurses and midwives required the availability of adequate number of tutors to teach, guide and mentor students qualitatively.
She said unfortunately that was not the situation in the school as tutors continued to refuse postings to Atibie, citing various reasons including lack of decent accommodation.
Mrs Osabutey said the issue of getting decent accommodation for tutors must be tackled with all the seriousness it deserves, adding “Through the College Advisory Board the institution has secured a 2.9 acre land for expansion and the availability of land for any of these projects would therefore not be a problem”.
She mentioned another serious challenge facing the school as the lack of a mini bus to convey smaller groups of students for practical work.
“The last of challenge facing the school is the lack of a standby generator for use when power from the main national grid goes off”.
The Principal noted that the school had no backup power supply.
“Apart from the serious inconvenience the situation poses to both staff and students academically, the security implications of our current predicament for a predominantly female school are too obvious”.
She said the College was almost through with all the procedures necessary to get formally affiliated to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
She noted that when the affiliation procedures were completed, the College would now be in a position to award Diploma Certificate from the KNUST alongside the professional licensure certificates from the Nurses and Midwives Council.
Mrs Osabutey congratulated the graduates and charged them to let their light shine wherever they might find themselves.
She extended her appreciation and gratitude to the Government and the Ministry of Health for giving the school 20 computers with UPS, a scanner, printer, two air conditioners and internet connectivity.
Source: GNA