Accra, April 14, GNA - Hajia Balchisu Iddrisu, Principal of Martin Luther Health Training School, has appealed to Government for reduction in the exorbitant fees paid by students from private health institutions on clinical training in hospitals and polyclinics.

"We appeal to government to intervene on our behalf for the reductio= n of the exorbitant fees paid by private health institutions on clinical training, but public health institutions do not pay anything," she added. Hajia Balchisu made the appeal at the second matriculation of 204 students admitted into the School in Accra on Thursday.

Mrs Doris Kpongbor, Former Greater Accra Deputy Director of Nursing Services, administered the Matriculation Oath.

The School began five years ago to run a two-year Course in Health Assistant Clinical and is in the process of being accreditation and upgraded into a Diploma Awarding Institution in Nursing Programme by 2013.

Hajia Balchisu appealed to the students to study hard and be disciplined, adding 93Discipline does not only regulate one's behaviour at workplace but shapes behaviour even outside the work place". She said the School was endowed with highly qualified and permanent tutors dedicated to teaching student nurses for positive results. Hajia Balchisu said the first batch of students presented for the Licencing Examination conducted by the Nurses and Midwives Council in 2009 scored 65 per cent, which was among the best five in the country. "The second batch that we presented in 2010 also scored 57 per cent, even though there was a reduction in percentage, we were still among the best," she added.

Dr Owusu Achaw Duah, Executive Director of the School, said a Special Information Technology Resource Centre would be established soon to promote tele-education, long distance health education and tele-health practices.

He announced that the School was being upgraded into a college to comprise of School of Nursing, School of Allied Health and School of Special Educational Studies, that would serve as a pre-university institution for prospective students who want to take Nursing at the University level. Dr Duah appealed to government to treat the nursing profession with all the needed attention as good health was not a privilege but a right for all.. "Rapid Economic Development Agenda will not yield positive results, unless it is tied with good health care. Without good healthy people, the economic prosperity of the country will be at risk," he added.

Dr Duah called on government to assist private educational institution= s with grants, loans with lower interest rates and extend the SSNIT Students Loan and GETFUND facilities to them.