The Canadian Government has announced 9.465 million dollars in funding to The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), in efforts to scale up paediatric nursing care in Ghana.
The five-year initiative from 2014 to 2019, aims to strengthen health systems by training paediatric nurses and health care workers in the poorest, under-served communities in Ghana and help reduce illness and deaths among newborns and children.
It will be implemented by SickKids, together with the Ghana Health Service and the Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives.
A statement issued by Maxime Robert, Press Secretary, Office of the Canadian Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said the announcement was made in Toronto by Parliamentary Secretary Lois Brown, on behalf of the Christian Paradise, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, at an event hosted by the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health.
It said the initiative to increase paediatric nurse training would help improve health outcomes for newborns and children in Ghana.
The statement said the initiative builds on the success of a Canada-funded pilot project with SickKids that delivered innovative paediatric health worker training, and strengthened the capacity of paediatric health systems in Ghana, Ethiopia and Tanzania between 2009 and 2014.
It said the pilot project also established the first specialized paediatric nurse training programme of its kind at the University of Ghana.
“Our government is proud of our successful partnership with SickKids in strengthening paediatric health systems, by training health care workers to provide quality, cost-effective and sustainable nursing and midwifery care to newborns and children in Ghana.
“Scaling up our efforts will help improve the health and save the lives of even more Ghanaian newborns and children,” the statement quoted Brown as saying.
Dr. Jemima Dennis-Awi, President, Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives, said: “This investment will have both an immediate and ongoing impact on child morbidity and mortality in Ghana.
Nurses and midwives trained through this programme, go on to become leaders in their communities and active advocates for child health.”
The statement said: “The Harper government is committed to achieving the goal of ending preventable deaths of mothers and children within a generation”.
It said increasing the number of well-trained nurses to strengthen health systems needed to deliver high-impact services to children and families in Ghana would help reach this goal.
“Improving the health of women and children in the developing world is Canada’s top international development priority,” said Paradis.
“Working with a wide range of partners to find new and innovative solutions to critical health challenges is key to saving lives.”
“This collaboration between SickKids, Canada and the Government of Ghana represents the importance of partnerships at the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health,” said Dr. Stanley Zlotkin, Chief, SickKids Centre for Global Child Health.
“These partnerships are what allow us to participate in the scaling up of evidence-based interventions to improve health systems in areas that need it the most.”
The statement said this initiative was part of Canada’s on-going commitment to maternal, newborn and child health.
It said the initiative would also help Ghana’s Ministry of Health reach its target to train 1,500 paediatric nurse specialists over the next 10 to 15 years, to boost capacity to deliver child survival interventions.
Source: GNA
