Best Answer
What is the history of nursing in Ghana?
Many articles that explore the history of nursing are very focused on the evolution and history of nursing in the Western world, which leads people to mistakenly conclude that nursing evolved in the West and then was transported to other parts of the world, including Ghana. On the contrary, Ghana has a rich tradition of nurses as healthcare practitioners and the profession evolved in Ghana alongside developments in other parts of the world. The history of nursing in Ghana may not contain any figures as famous as Florence Nightingale, but it is wrong to equate the lack of a central figure with a lack of nursing history. Instead, the roots of nursing in Ghana can be traced back to well-before the introduction of Western medicine, when midwives and other traditional health practitioners were responsible for the health and safety of their communities. These women often received informal on-the-job training; a tradition that continued until long after Western medicine had come to Ghana.
Of course, as in just about any other place around the globe, Florence Nightingale played a role in the development of nursing in Ghana. While she was not directly involved in the country, she made undeniable contributions to the profession that not only raised the profession in terms of public reputation but made huge impacts on patient outcomes. Following in those footsteps, nurses in Ghana began receiving formal educations in nursing instead of on-the-job training. Early training focused on technical aspects of care, such as anatomy, physiology, and disease transmission. However, as modern nurses are well aware, a huge component of a nurse’s job is understanding people and treating the whole person. Nurses need to understand human behavior, culture, psychology, anthropology, and sociology in order to effectively interact with a wide range of patients. It would be years before those skills were incorporated into nursing
