On January 13, 2015, Parliamentary Secretary Lois Brown, on behalf of the Honourable Christian Paradis, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, today announced $9.465 million in funding to The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) for the Scaling Up Paediatric Nursing Care in Ghana initiative.
The five-year (2014-2019) initiative aims to strengthen health systems by training paediatric nurses and health care workers in the poorest underserved communities in Ghana and help reduce illness and deaths among newborns and children. It will be implemented by SickKids, together with the Ghana Health Services (Ministry of Health) and the Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives. Project activities include:
- establishing three new training institutions for paediatric nursing specialist programs and continuing professional development courses;
- developing national standardized curricula for the paediatric nursing specialist program and the continuing professional development course at the Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives;
- delivering paediatric nursing specialist training programs to 500 nurses; and
- delivering continuing professional development courses to 1,000 nurses, midwives and community health workers.
The Scaling Up Paediatric Nursing Care in Ghana initiative is expected to benefit nearly 6.7 million Ghanaian newborns and children, as a result of the scale up of paediatric nursing programs. It also directly responds to the Ghanaian Ministry of Health’s goal to train 1,500 paediatric nurse specialists by 2025.
This initiative builds on the success of the $2.5-million pilot project, SickKids Global Child Health Program (2009-2014). The pilot delivered innovative paediatric health worker training and strengthened the capacity of paediatric health care systems in Ghana, Ethiopia and Tanzania. It also led to the establishment of the first specialized paediatric nurse training program of its kind at the University of Ghana. More than 200 paediatric nurse specialists took part in the training program in Ghana and now have the ability to prevent, identify and treat childhood diseases.
Improving women’s and children’s health and survival in developing countries is Canada’s top development priority. Strengthening health systems needed to deliver high-impact services to children and families will help Canada reach its goal to end the preventable deaths of mothers, newborns and children under five years of age within a generation.
