Nursing students at Yendi College of Health Sciences say they have been routinely denied access to their skills laboratory, raising fears about the quality of their practical training. Abdul Mumin Mohammed, Vice-President of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC), said the facility was often locked when students needed it most.
“How can we be having a skills lab in the school, but when it is time for us to do practicals, they will tell us we can’t go inside there and practise towards the practical exams? What they will say is that they don’t want us to scatter the place,” he said.
Mohammed said students were left to prepare for examinations without the chance to practise core nursing skills. He warned this could affect their readiness for the Nursing and Midwifery Council licensing exams and clinical work.
“This is our profession; it is the nursing profession. Whatever we learn theoretically, we have to do it practically. And if we don’t do it practically, we may not be able to remember what we learned theoretically,” he added.
The SRC Vice-President also contrasted the situation at Yendi with other nursing colleges where students have access to hospitals and real patients. “Our sister schools, they use the hospital, where they use real patients. But as we are using dummies, you just speak to it and go. You don’t know the response that the dummy is giving to you,” he said.
Concerns about the college’s facilities extended beyond the skills lab. Mohammed said some lecture halls had broken fans, forcing students to endure heat during the hottest parts of the day. He described classroom conditions as uncomfortable and called for improvements.
Wunimi Mabel, SRC Vice-President for Women’s Affairs, said poor sanitation and inadequate meals were affecting students’ welfare. She claimed the college lacked labourers to maintain the environment, leaving students to do tasks such as sweeping and weeding the compound.
Mabel also criticised the dining hall, saying the food was poorly prepared and served in small quantities.
The SRC President, Napari Benjamin, questioned the transparency of fees charged to students. He said fees had risen from GH¢3,815 last semester to GH¢4,663 this semester without detailed explanations from management.
Management described the itemised fee breakdown as private and said a Ministry of Health directive prevented its release, Benjamin said. The SRC presented fee schedules from other health training colleges to support their request but received no resolution.
Benjamin also raised concerns about a GH¢490 fee paid by students admitted in 2024 for school cloth, medical screening, and scrubs. Despite now being in their final year, students had not received the promised items. A proposal to deduct the amount from current fees was rejected because the current principal was not in office when the students were admitted.
The college principal, Hussein Abubakari Abdul-Karim, denied the students’ allegations, calling them fabrications. He said the skills laboratory was open at all times and housed the office of the laboratory coordinator, making it impossible for the facility to be permanently locked as claimed.
Abdul-Karim said students had recently participated in practical sessions during field outreach programmes in districts including Bimbilla.
He dismissed claims about classroom heat, saying some halls were air-conditioned. On the fees, he said the charges followed a directive from the Ghana Health Service.
The dispute leaves questions over the state of training at Yendi College of Health Sciences as students prepare for careers in nursing amid contested access to essential resources.
According to Joy Online.
