The Kwadaso SDA Nursing and Midwifery Training College has commissioned a 500-bed capacity hostel facility at its Barekese campus. The new hostel is to boost female intake & accommodation on the campus which had become a challenge for the college.
The hostel facility was constructed in a record time of 12 months (November 2020 – November 2021) by one of Ghana’s leading construction firms with almost two decades of experience, Nickseth Construction Company Limited.
The contract sum was GHS609, 2480.04 which was fully funded by the College from its Internally Generated Funds (IGF) with support from the SDA church.
At a brief handing over and commissioning ceremony involving stakeholders of the school, Board Chair for Nickseth Constructions Limited, Dr. Godfred Owusu Boateng noted that the company believes it has a critical role in developing physical infrastructure that can stand the test of time.
‘‘Nickseth constructions company limited believes, that it has a critical role to play when it comes to the quest for global society to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in fact the company will duel more on the goal number 11that seeks to talk about building cities and then making them sustainable and that is why we always want to be very very careful when projects like these are given to us.’’
‘‘In fact we also realized that our forefathers fought their wars with cutlasses, machete and axe’s they were relevant at the course of that time but the present generation our time the implements for those wars are education so if you look at sustainability and education, we position ourselves such that we want to address all of them at the same time, now we are also very passionate about the fact that education is the key to every national development so we are very much particular and we show extreme passion whenever you give us projects like these.’’
Dr Boateng further noted that ‘‘ we put up our nice vision statement there and we don’t want to renege on our promise by giving them something else so we always want to maintain our touch of excellence that has been the backbone of our company. Whenever people are trying to praise Nickseth Company limited because of our quality work then it is hinged on the touch of excellence that has been our catchword.’’
He used the opportunity to admonish the student and the college’s authority to use the facility with care so that future generations can benefit from the project.
‘‘Now to the students who are the immediate beneficiaries of the project, we will like them to use the project sustainably because everything is about sustainability, now to management we want them to upgrade the culture maintenance because much resources have been committed into the project.’’
The principal of the college, Mr Daniel Attah-Tuffour, lauded the contractors of the time used to execute the project.
He used the opportunity to assure the government that the facility would train more nurses to fill vacancies under its Agenda 111 health facilities adding that ‘‘Management believes, this facility will go a long way to ensure sustainable delivery of quality education for students’’.
‘‘The long term plan, of the school is to turn the Kwadaso campus into a training site for specialized nurses in the areas of critical care, peri-operative, emergency, public health and geriatric nursing among others’’.
Mr. Atta Tuffour appealed to the government to help develop the rest of 50 percent of undeveloped land to provide more infrastructure to students.
“The college needs more lecture halls and hostel for the male students,” he said.
“The college would be grateful if the uncompleted three-storey hostel for males students would be completed for the College,” he said.
Mr Attah-Tuffour appealed on behalf of all health training institutions if they could be rolled onto the GETfund to be able to able to benefit from projects.
The Executive Director of the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG), Dr Peter Yeboah, however noted the ceremony affirmed the timeless church-state partnership in health delivery.
He said CHAG was improving access to quality health service for all people living in Ghana and producing critical human resources for health for the Ghanaian health sector.
Dr Yeboah called on stakeholders including churches and communities to re-examine the responsibilities in building the necessary health infrastructure for human resources for health development in the interest of national health security.
The Deputy Minister of Health, Tina Naa Ayele Mensah, who was a special guest, said the ministry was working diligently to ensure that a quality human resource base is available to achieve the vision of a healthy population for national development.
“Nurses and Midwives play an integral part in the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal Three through universal health coverage,” she said.
Speaking on the theme: “Building excellence in nursing and Midwifery education in achieving universal health coverage: the role of stakeholders in infrastructure development,” Ms Mensah said as a result, the government was working tirelessly to ensure that quality training, equitable distribution of a competent health workforce and improvement in health infrastructure.
The facility is to help the college absorb more graduates from the Free Senior High School Programme and thereby, reduce unemployment in the country.
The training college was established in the year 2005 as part of efforts by the Seventh Day Adventist Church to improve the quality and delivery of healthcare in Ghana and beyond and has since trained a lot of nursing and midwifery professionals who are serving in various capacities across the globe.
The Kwadaso SDA Nursing and Midwifery Training College is under government institution under the auspices of the Ghana Adventist Health Service.
