Quality Health Care Must Be Client-Focused-prof. Otchere Addai-Mensah
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), Prof. Otchere Addai-Mensah, has asked newly posted nurses to the hospital to support the drive by management to make the facility one of the most customer-centric in the country.
He said quality health care was client-focused and nurses and midwives by their training and deployment as frontline staff were well positioned to help attain this through the provision of respectful, timely, compassionate and professional nursing care to patients.
Prof. Addai-Mensah was speaking yesterday at the orientation programme organised by the hospital for the 248 new nurses and midwives who had just been posted to the hospital. The newly posted nurses were among others given detailed education on the vision, mission and objectives of the hospital and the pathways for delivering a customer-centric health care services to the patients during the orientation.
Prof. Addai-Mensah noted that the new nurses and midwives had joined the hospital at the time that there was a major paradigm shift in making patient care a core priority of management and all staff members were expected to re-orient and dedicate themselves to the attainment of this objective.
“If you have the habit of coming to work late, well know that KATH is not the place for you. If you have the habit of not coming to work because it is a weekend, then note this is not the place for you”, he cautioned the new nurses.
Prof. Addai-Mensah said as healthcare professionals, they would come across patients who are very irritable largely because they were unwell but “I expect you to have the patience to bear with them and be their guide in their search for care by virtue of your training”.
Ms. Georgina Afua Sam, Director of Nursing and Midwifery Services of the hospital, pointed out that KATH as a tertiary health facility serves not only the Ashanti Region but also receives referrals from over 10 other regions in Ghana.
Ms. Sam said the hospital would not be able to deliver on its mandate of providing quality specialist health care services to the public without a disciplined and hardworking workforce.
“I, therefore, wish to urge you as nurses to allow yourselves to be guided by the ethics of the profession at all times if you are to make a positive difference in the lives of patients” she advised.
The 248 new nurses are expected to be distributed to the various clinical directorates to help augment the nursing staff whose numbers have been adversely impacted by their recent nation-wide exodus abroad.
