Teaching at Ankaful and Pantang nurse training colleges

Pantang NTC



Ankaful NTC



In June I joined a group of Ghanaian nurses who work in London to conduct some training for staff and students at the two psychiatric nurse training colleges in Ghana. Here we are in action using our interactive methods, including roles plays and group discussion, as well as some practice of breakaway and restraint techniques which caused much hilarity. Despite the humour, the management of violent or agitated patients is a hot topic in situations where wards are poorly staffed, staff are inadequately trained and it is not uncommon for the psychiatric hospitals to run out of medication. Sometimes the staff resort to using other patients to help with restraint. However there is hope that with time the situation will improve. The colleges have increased their intake so we taught huge classes, sometimes over 150 students. It is hoped that increasing the numbers of trained psychiatric nurses will plug some of the shortfall in health professionals as a result of migration and attrition. However the more important issue is also about the status of patients who are often managed in very authoritarian ways, and the culture of fear and apathy on the wards which means that there is a tendency to use the most assertive methods of restraint such as high doses of IV medication, rather attempt to contain agitated patients through less invasive and drastic means.