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The Nursing and Midwifery Council (N&MC) has selected 67 nurses and midwives across the country to participate in the Nightingale Challenge and Workshop which was launched at its head office in Accra.

The launch done via the Zoom Application is in response to the Global Nightingale Challenge, which is one of the programmes of the "Nursing Now" campaign; a three-year global initiative launched in 2018 to improve health by raising the status and profile of nursing and midwifery in the society.

The launch of the workshop was done in partnership with the University of Ghana Medical Centre, Mental Health Authority, Teaching Hospitals, the Ghana Health Service, Police and 37 Military Hospitals, Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives, and the School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Ghana, Legon, and the training is expected to end on May 21, 2020.

Mr Felix Nyante, the Registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, said Ghana launched the Nightingale Challenge on June 2019 and the campaign which is expected to run until the end of 2020; falls within the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale's birth and a year when nurses and midwives would be celebrated worldwide.

He said in celebrating 2020 as the year of the Nurse and Midwife, the Nightingale Challenge aims to equip and empower the next generation of these group of professionals as leaders, practitioners and advocates in health.

The Nightingale Challenge, he said, solicits the support of every health employer globally, to provide leadership and development training for a group of their young nurses and midwives during the year, which the N&MC had accepted and signed on to.

"By accepting the Nightingale Challenge, we are demonstrating our commitment to investing and championing nursing and midwifery at a time when the world is grappling with the Coronavirus pandemic and how to contain it," he said.

Mr Nyante said the N&MC would use its national platforms to promote the activities and achievements of its young nurses and midwives especially, in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said the workshop would feature expositions on topics such as Leadership (Next Generation), Implementation Research, Social Media Ethics and Repositioning Clinical Nursing and Midwifery among others.

Reverend Veronica Mina Darko, the Chairperson of the 14th Governing Board of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, who did the launch, said with the vision of ensuring the availability of trained nursing and midwifery professionals who would deliver competent, safe and prompt, and efficient professional services for clients, it has become prudent for the Council to accept the Nightingale Challenge, and also to partner other pertinent stakeholders to invest in the next generation.

She underscored the importance of good leadership which was currently recognized widely as part of overall effective nursing and midwifery practice.

"Globally, nursing and midwifery leadership and engagement are recognised as fundamental drivers for better patient outcomes," she said.

Reverend Darko said it is the future of Nursing and Midwifery not its past that provides confidence to the young women and men currently undertaking their present professional training, education and practice.

She said the Nursing and Midwifery leaders worldwide were also concerned with what would happen to these professions in the future because fewer younger nurses and midwives seem interested in leadership positions.

"The success of our profession hinges on our ability to recruit, develop and mentor our future leaders," Reverend Darko said.

She said ensuring the competences, skills and successes of the next generation of leaders requires planning and action, and urged all its current leaders at the various levels to begin the grooming of their replacements, so they could learn, adapt, prosper and critically think about their actions.

Reverend Darko said by dedicating themselves to this mission, they would make a difference for future generations and for the profession.