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The Management of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) has allayed the fears harboured by the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Council (GRNMA) that trained beneficiaries under the Community Health Workers (CHWs) Module are going to be assigned the functions reserved for professionally trained nurses in the various health facilities across the country.

The reassurance followed a crunch meeting called at the instance of the Management of the Youth Employment Agency with the leadership of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association GRNMA to thrash out the seeming impasse arising out of wrong media reportage concerning the job description of beneficiaries under the YEA’s Community Health Workers CHWs programme in partnership with the Ghana Health Service (GHS)

The GRNMA had expressed their displeasure over a news bulletin carried in various media outlets to the effect that CHW Beneficiaries would be assigned jobs like recording medical history and symptoms, bedside care, conducting physical examinations of patients in the health facilities etc. which are a preserve of professionally trained nurses.

The GRNMA had vehemently opposed the onward implementation of the CHWs Programme in the format they had perceived it to be.  

Their agitation also stems from the fact that there is a backlog of over 10,000 professionally trained Community Health Nurses waiting to be deployed by the Ghana Health Service after their three-year training and that this backlog could be deployed for the purposes for which the YEA is recruiting the 5,000 CHW Beneficiaries.

According to Mrs. Perpetual Ofori Ampofo President of GRNMA leadership, the trained nurses are better placed to execute those functions and would rather the Government deploy them to fill any vacancy.

Mrs. Ofori Ampofo and her team however, is of the view that dialogue is key and for that matter the GHS should have involved the GRNMA in coming out with the curriculum for the CHWs to avoid usurpation of roles.

However, contrary to the erroneous claim that the CHWs will serve as caregivers, the Agency has assured that the CHWs by their mandate will not come into contact with patients at the hospitals but rather perform purely supportive services and preventive care delivery, provide support and assistance to communities, families and individuals with preventive health measures.

They are also to create a bridge between providers of health, social and community services and communities that may have difficulty in accessing these services.