Three specialist nurses at the Upper East Regional Hospital in Bolgatanga have grabbed awards at the third National Annual Dinner and Awards Night of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) held in Accra.
The three; Mr Richard Addah, a Neonatal Nurse, emerged as Second Runner-up and Mr Francis K. Wuni, a Paediatric Nurse Specialist, received the special “Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo Innovation and Impact Award.” And Mr Samuel Aniah Awuni, also a Paediatric Nurse, picked the “Ruth Aku Gyang Rural Service Award”.
Mr Addah took home GH₵30,000.00, a laptop computer and a citation of honour, while Mr Wuni and Mr Awuni received plagues, undisclosed sums of money and citations of honour.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) after the awards ceremony, Mr Addah said even though his target was the overall Best Nurse Award, the Second Runner-up award, came with responsibilities and high expectations of him from colleagues nurses and patients in the Region.
“The award comes with a certain level of responsibility and more work for me. People will expect a lot from me, after having won this award. So I will keep the good work ongoing,” he said.
Mr Addah, with interest in solving identified clinical problems in the nursing profession, designed seizure and feeding charts for new-born care,
“Some nurses were knowledge deficient in the various types of neonatal seizures and if this occurs, how then will they identify and manage them?”.
“I worked on getting information on how to easily identify and manage neonatal seizures to support nurses,” Mr Addah, who has also adjudged the Upper East Regional Best Nurse for 2022, said.
He expressed gratitude to the National and Regional leadership, and members of the GRNMA for the award, and further pledged to work diligently to improve health service delivery in the Region.
Mr Wuni the “Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo Innovation and Impact Award” award winner said the award was initiated to reward nurses or midwives who undertook innovative health projects that impacted positively health service delivery.
According to him, he was awarded for research he conducted to determine the incidence of blood culture-related sepsis, causative bacteria, and antibiotics sensitivity among newborn babies with suggestive signs of sepsis who are admitted at the Regional Hospital.
Mr Wuni disclosed to the GNA that the results of the research indicated that “late onset of sepsis is a common category of sepsis, which microorganisms are resistant to commonly prescribed antibiotics.
Mr Awuni said he had over the years conducted free medical screening exercises in rural communities for the aged and children, especially in the Bawku Municipality.
The Paediatric nurse further extended the same gesture to some orphanage homes in the Bolgatanga Municipality and has actively taken part in recent medical screening exercises conducted by the Paediatric Department of the Regional Hospital.
According to Mr Awuni, nurses and midwives in the Upper East Region were doing “extremely well” and urged them to document, and take pictures and videos of projects and initiatives they undertook, to serve as evidence of their work.
“Let us record or take pictures or videos of the little things we do. I never knew that these health screening exercises will lead me to win this award. The person who nominated me for this award had seen my efforts in health service delivery,” he said.
