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Sunyani-based NGO Reproductive Needs and Fitness (RENEF) Foundation has expressed disappointment in the recent directive by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) to discontinue the broadcast of the beauty pageant, Miss Nightingale. The NMC claims that the show has commercial motives and lacks official approval to air.
RENEF Foundation in 2023 rebranded the beauty pageant, Miss Elegance into Miss Nightingale, tailored for nursing and midwifery students in training colleges and universities, with the purpose of highlighting critical issues of gender-based violence, maternal, and child health.
The show is broadcast on Onua TV on Sundays at 3 pm.
In a turn of events, the NMC in a statement dated August 18, 2023, sternly directed RENEF Foundation to cease broadcasting the program, citing commercial undertones and a lack of official sanction from the Council to air it.
“Records available at the N&MC shows that the organizer of the said pageant, RENEF Foundation, failed and or refused to notify the N&MC… Additionally, the professional code of conduct for Nurses and Midwives prohibits the use of the professionals for commercial purposes. It is clear from the nature of the pageant and the posturing of the organizers that the purpose has a deep commercial undertone,” it said.
Addressing a press conference in Sunyani, RENEF Foundation’s Executive Director, Abigail Antwi-Baafi described the Council’s statements as unfortunate, seeking to cast a negative slur on the image of their organization.
She emphasized that Miss Nightingale is not a new program but rather evolved from Miss Elegance to closely align with RENEF’s core purpose of providing sensitization on maternal and child health.
“For anyone to seek to in any way denigrate the purpose of our existence by negating the reasons of the pageant will be most unfortunate. As an organization, we are always looking for ways to in the very best push our educational and promotion agenda on all relevant public health issues and this we will never relent with all stakeholders,” she stated.
She further explained that contrary to the claim that they were using the show and its contestants for commercial purposes, their funds were internally generated with little corporate support.
“RENEF Foundation over the past years have executed all these projects with internally generated funds and little support from cooperate Ghana.”
Ms. Antwi-Baafi added that the foundation regretted what seemed to be the NMC’s resolve to obstruct their good works in the face of surging cases of maternal deaths and related matters.
She also stated that RENEF Foundation will remain strongly committed to continue the broadcast of Miss Nightingale “by any means possible”.
She further invited the public to scrutinize the program and decide for themselves its relevance on the issues it seeks to address.
