Nursing & Midwifery Council Withdraws Nurse Assistant Programmes

The Nursing and Midwifery Council of Ghana has withdrawn its earlier suspension of training of Nurse Assistant Clinical (NAC) and Nurse Assistant Preventive (NAP) programmes, which it communicated in a letter that said the suspension was to take effect in the 2019/2020 academic year.

According to the earlier letter, the move was to streamline Diploma- and Degree-Awarding Programmes in Nursing and Midwifery in order to improve the standard of practice.

The move followed the outcome of a desk review meeting held by the Ministry, N&MC, Ghana Health Service, CHAG, Teaching Hospitals and other stakeholders in respect of the health sector needs for these cadre of staff.

The letter said statistics showed that there were adequate numbers of NAC/NAP practitioners for the health sector, a situation the council said was affirmed during a human resource forum held by the Ministry of Health early this year in Koforidua to review the country’s human resource needs for the various cadre of nurses and midwives in the country, among others.

The first letter said it was in this regard that quotas for admissions of these programmes had been reducing since last academic year.

The Council said it had issued a directive to health institutions across the country to plan towards the folding up of NAC/NAP programmes if they are currently running them.

In a U-turn, however, a new letter released by the same council said: “As a follow up, the council has noted the unintended consequences of the contents of the letter … Accordingly, the letter is hereby withdrawn until further notice”.

Source: ClassFMonline