Ghanaian nurses at a crossroads : managing expectations on a medical ward

Nursing as a profession is practiced worldwide in hospitals, clinics, health centres, and individual homes. While there are universal definitions of nursing and universal criteria for training student nurses, the working reality that nurses face differs widely. This ethnography provides insights into the daily routine of nurses on a medical ward in a teaching hospital in Ghana. Next to a description of historical developments of nursing, it analyses nurses' motives, the nature of their work, and power relations on the ward. This study also looks at perceptions of nursing in Ghanaian society. Having been trained in western concepts of care, the nurses on the ward are confronted with demands and challenges not covered in their educational training such as personnel shortage, limited equipment and financial restrictions. In addition, tradition, religion and the notion of respect influence the work of nurses. By reflecting on this profession and its position in the health care setting, the author shows how notions of health, care and death are shaped by the surrounding culture.Christine Böhmig (Germany, 1969) was trained as a general nurse. She worked as a nurse in Cape Coast, Ghana, and in Heidelberg, Germany. She studied cultural anthropology, sociology and political sciences at the University of Heidelberg. Since 1999, she has been working as a tutor and lecturer at University College Utrecht, the Netherlands. She obtained her PhD from the University of Amsterdam on the basis of anthropological research among nurses in a hospital in Accra, Ghana. Her research interests are in hospital ethnography, religion and health, African belief systems and qualitative methodologies.