Quack nurses face dismissal

High maternal and child mortality rates have been partly blamed on inadequate qualified personnel.

Kampala

With the launch of a new five-year strategic plan, the Uganda Nurses and Midwife’s Council has said it will weed out all nurses and midwives who are currently practising without licences.

Currently, the council estimates that about 20 per cent of nurses and midwives are practising without valid licences with another unspecified number of nursing schools operating without following the national standards for training.

With the plan launched yesterday and supported by the United Nations Population Fund, mandatory continuous professional education will be enforced to ensure that nurses and midwives are up to date with their knowledge and skills. Functions of the UNMC will also be decentralised for better regularisation of the profession.

“The council needs to reach every part of the country where nurses and midwives work to ensure that they perform to the expected standards and that the public are safe in their hands. Unfortunately we are currently thin on the ground,” Mr John Wakida, the Registrar Nursing and Midwifery Council, said. “We end up fire fighting when a mother has died instead of preventing it from happening in the first place.”

Over the years, the council’s operations have been based on annual plans without any long-term strategic directions. But some plans were not fully operated because of managerial and financial constraints. UNFPA Representative Uganda Country Office Janet Jackson, however, said the challenge is for the council to mobilise resources to implement the plan.

flanyero@ug.nationmedia.com