TEACHING HOSPITAL TO IMPROVE CLIENT RELATIONS (PAGE 50, MAR 31, 2011)

THE Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) has commenced a series of training programmes to enhance the skills of its staff in the areas of client relations and counselling.
This follows complaints by some clients of the hospital that some of its staffs were poor in handling clients, thereby resulting in poor service delivery, which consequently caused disaffection against the hospital.
The first of such trainings took place at the hospital’s premises for the midwives and was facilitated by a communication specialist and a clinical psychologist.
Some of the topics treated included general counselling, psychotherapy, pre and post-pregnancy counselling, customer care and effective communication techniques.
The Public Relations Officer of the hospital, Gabriel Nii Otu Ankrah told the Daily Graphic at the sidelines of the training, that it was the desire of the hospital to address the grey areas in its operations.
“Like any other health facility in Ghana, we receive complaints from patients and clients of ill-treatment from some of our nurses and this we have resolved to bring a stop to,” he stated.
Nii Otu mentioned that the priority of the hospital for the 2011 year was to transform the attitudes of its personnel in line with the standards expected of staffs of tertiary health facilities.
He said the training was therefore intended for personnel of all the units and departments in the hospital, ranging from clinical to allied health.
Nii Otu further noted that the training programme had started with midwives because most of the complaints received were traced to the maternity and labour wards.
“These units are very critical to maternal and child health and therefore any complaint regarding poor service delivery in these areas deserves some urgent attention,” he added.
The Director of Nursing Services at the TTH, Mrs Elizabeth Danso indicated that the situation where patients or clients were at loggerheads with nurses could soon become a thing of the past if the training programmes were given a priority.
One of the trainees, who is also a principal midwifery officer, Madam Salifu Awabu described the training as very useful, since it had offered them the opportunity to learn new techniques and approaches to effective communication and counselling.
Although she admitted that mistreating clients was unprofessional, she entreated the public to appreciate the strenuous conditions under which midwives work to ensure the health of both mother and child.
Meanwhile, the hospital has begun performing minor clinical surgeries on a daily basis on patients with conditions, such as hernia and minor cuts at its rehabilitated casualty theatre.
According to the hospital authorities, this has helped to reduce the number of admissions of surgical cases at the facility, as well as the pressure at the main theatre.