Nurses warned against wearing uniform to create social media content   

Mrs Philomena Adjoa Nyarkoa Woolley, the Registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) of Ghana, has cautioned nurses and midwives against the use of uniforms to create social media video or picture contents.  

The Registrar observed that some nurses and midwives including students, subscribed to social media handles, especially TikTok as content creators and cautioned that, “When you are creating your content, please don’t wear the uniform and do not portray that you are a nurse.”  

She said the nursing and midwifery professions do not allow such acts, and expressed concern that, there was one of such contents on social media in which a nurse was educating people on how to dress babies cord, and that everything the person said was wrong.  

Mrs Woolley, who was addressing staff and students of the Nursing Training College (NTC) in Bolgatanga as part of her three-day working visit to health training institutions and some selected healthcare facilities in the Upper East Region, said nurses and midwives had no mandate to teach on social media.  

The Council’s visit to the College afforded staff and students the opportunity to interact with the Registrar who was accompanied by Dr Mary Ama Opare, its Board Chair, and other top officials.  

Mrs Woolley further expressed concern that some student nurses and midwives in uniform danced in seductive manner with tutors during matriculation ceremonies, take videos and post on social media platforms.  

The Registrar, stern in her caution against such acts, reminded tutors, clinical staff and students that nursing and midwifery were noble professions, and called on them to uphold its tenets.  

She said the Council had issued a statement against such practice and urged managements of health training institutions and healthcare facilities to make available copies of the statement on various notice boards for all to read and be guided.  

She told management of the College that the Regulatory Body would launch a “Fitness to Practice” policy this year, to ensure that only physically fit persons with the requisite qualifications would be admitted into the nursing and midwifery colleges.  

She indicated that during examinations, the Council observed that some candidates were not physically fit to practice the nursing and midwifery professions but were admitted to the Colleges.  

Mrs Woolley called on Principals of the various nursing and midwifery training institutions across the country not to admit persons with disabilities for the programmes saying, “There are other professions, which are also equally noble that they can do.”  

Touching on the behaviour of nurses and midwives, the Registrar said the communication of some nurses and midwives was extremely bad to the extent that members of the public do not speak in their favour.  

She said the anger in some patients and clients in queues at the various healthcare facilities, especially at Out-Patient Departments, was as a result of the inability of nurses to effectively communicate to them about triage; the assessment and sorting of patients according to their needs.  

“Communicate to the patients, inform them that you have separated them according to those who are very critical to the less critical, and that they would all be taken care of. When you say it nicely, they themselves will allow you to do that,” she said.  

She added that the behaviour of some nurses who ignored patients without communicating procedures to them but rather stayed glued to their computers and phones was unprofessional.  

Mrs Woolley noted that others were usually on their mobile phones while attending to patients saying, “It is annoying to some of the patients, and that is why when we go for salary increment, the public does not sympathise with us.”  

The team, led by the Registrar, later proceeded to the Regional Hospital where it engaged Nurse and Midwife Managers, Principals of health training institutions among other officials on the Council’s intention to launch a revalidation policy intended to periodically access and confirm the competence, performance and professionalism of practitioners in their fields.  

Source: GNA  

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