President of Breast Care International, Dr. Beatrice Wiafe-Addai, has expressed concern about nursing and midwifery institutes prioritising theory over practical skills, especially in breast cancer cases.
According to Dr. Wiafe-Addai, students should master both theory and practical skills during their time in school to make their work easier once they have finished.
She proposes that because they lack the necessary equipment, nursing and midwifery institutes should take steps to collaborate with other private sector organisations like Breast Care International so that their students can gain practical expertise.
This, she says, will help the students comprehend how to carry out a clinical breast examination in practice among other things.
“We don’t have screening Mammography not in any African country. What we can depend on is the clinical breast examination. We need to train our nurses, and these are nurses who are going to be the front line workers in the near future. They must be taught the right way to do the clinical breast examination,” she said.
She appealed to individuals and benevolent organizations to support the nursing training institutions with medical equipment to improve their practical know-how.
Dr. Wiafe-Addai was speaking to journalists at the Kwadaso SDA Nursing and Midwifery Training College’s branch at Barekese after a breast cancer awareness event.
She further noted that skin lightening products have the tendency of causing breast cancer, therefore, men and women should desist from using such products.
She said during the Ghana breast cells study, it was revealed that bleaching products are among the prominent risk factors that can serve as a recipe for breast cancer.
The Principal of the Kwadaso SDA Nursing and Midwifery Training College, Daniel Atta Tuffour, commended Breast Care International for their enormous contribution to breast cancer awareness in the country.
He said breast cancer education is significant to the students as they prepare themselves to serve communities.
Mr. Tuffour indicated that even though they learn about cancers, the college lacks the needed equipment to better help the students to understand the disease.
