Project News

On November 8th, the first working group meeting on Outputs 2 and 3 was held at the College of Nursing, Sher-e- Bangla Nagar, where the project office is located. One of the aims of the project is to improve nursing services by strengthening Output 2, strengthening capacity of nursing colleges, and Output 3, strengthening clinical practices at hospitals. Many of the future activities will require cooperation between the college and hospital, therefore, the first meeting was held jointly in order to create a bond and to share the recognition of the activities of both parties. The main contents of the meeting were as follows.

[Date and Time] November 8, 2022, 8:00-15:30

[Venue] College of Nursing, Sher-e- Bangla Nagar (Dhaka city)

[Participants] 40 (16 from nursing colleges, 16 from college hospitals, 2 from the Directorate General of Nursing and Midwifery (DGNM), and 6 from project teams)

[Content]

1. Sharing and approval of Terms of Reference (TOR) by the Working Group members
2. Experience sharing by College of Nursing, Sher-e- Bangla Nagar, Chattogram College of Nursing, and Chattogram Medical College Hospital
3. A participatory workshop to exchange opinions on future activities
   3-1. Extract issues by writing on sticky notes about college/hospital organizations and nursing education
   3-2. Sort out the issues and write down the path to solving them
   3-3. Placing priority plans considering the feasibility and effectiveness of solutions
4. Presentation of action points based on the workshop
5. Summary/Remarks

The objective of the workshop was to have an opportunity to exchange opinions on issues and solutions for effective committee management in the organization and future nursing practice. Prior to the workshop, we made sure not to simply deal with the issues that are unable to solve by the members themselves, such as lack of human resources or budget. However, some of the groups simply requested updated equipment and teaching materials from the project. In fact, we are currently at the stage of confirming the situation of the facilities that are insufficient for providing effective nursing education through the baseline survey results.

On the other hand, another hospital nurses' group raised an action plan for developing human resources to improve the quality of nursing care. Other derived plans included "enhancement of nursing education that enables nurses/students to acquire and demonstrate expertise", "development of committee activities that connect hospitals and universities", and "improvement of the behavior and environment of nursing students and nurses" which were quite relevant to future activities of the project. The results of the workshop and ongoing baseline survey will help us further plan on detailed activities of the project for better outcomes.

The workshop became a valuable opportunity where all participants actively exchanged their opinions with each other regardless of their titles and/or affiliations. As a follow-up to this meeting, the members will prepare a list of members for hospital/college regular Coordination Committee (CC) and hospital committee members and a Terms of Reference (TOR), which will then be submitted to the relevant ministries for approval.

Principal sharing experience on committee activities of College of Nursing, Sher-e- Bangla Nagar

Senior staff nurse exchanging opinions with DGNM participant

The Nursing Superintendent and the Principal of the College of Nursing are actively dodging opinions

Young nurse from Gazipur explaining about improving the quality of nurses