In the small town of Kpando Gadza in the Volta region of Ghana, Miss Lawrencia Aggrey-Bluwey was born some 30 years ago to two Civil Servants; Dr. Francis Aggrey-Bluwey of blessed memory and Supt. Cecilia Aggrey-Bluwey. Miss Bluwey had a fairly normal childhood but discovered very early in life that she excelled at other intellectual activities such as spelling competitions, delivering speeches, and representing her school in Mathematics and Science activities. During her Junior High School Education, she wrote her Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in JSS 2, and passed with an aggregate of 7, which qualified her to pursue her secondary education.
She had her secondary school education at the Archbishop Porter Girls’ Secondary School (APGSS) in the Western Region of Ghana, where she studied General Science with Elective Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology as her elective subjects. During her time in APGSS, Miss Bluwey was engaged in a number of extracurricular activities with her favorite activity being Debating. Lawrence represented her school in a number of debating competitions, most of which her school emerged victoriously. The most prestigious of such competitions was Ghana at 50 Interschools’ Debate which featured Senior High schools from all over Ghana. Lawrencia, being the Chief Debater of her school at the time, led the school to emerge second place in the National Competition. She further excelled as being a member of Ghana’s delegation to the International Junior Science Olympiad in Sao Paulo, Brazil which brought home a Bronze Medal in the year 2006. Lawrencia climaxed her Senior Secondary School Education by attaining the prestigious position of Assistant School Prefect during her stay.
After successfully passing her West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), Miss Bluwey gained admission to pursue a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing at the University of Ghana Nursing School. Lawrencia’s decision to pursue Nursing as a profession was driven by the passion to help people in pain and impact the lives of many who really needed help within the healthcare setting. She further acquired a Registered General Nursing (RGN) Certificate from the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Ghana.
Miss Aggrey-Bluwey is equipped with years of experience as a Healthcare Professional in both the public and private health sectors in Ghana, having functioned in both Emergency and Non-emergency clinical settings. After her Nursing Training education, she began her career as a Rotation Nurse at the Achimota Hospital in Accra, from which she proceeded to work with the Ghana Police Hospital in Cantoments, C&J Medicare Hospital in Sakumono, and finally the Shai-Osudoku District Hospital in Dodowa. Lawrencia spent close to half of her working years in Clinical Nursing practice at the Shai-Osudoku District hospital, where she functioned mostly in the Emergency setting, performing both Clinical and Administrative roles.
Her aim was to change the narrative of the nursing profession in Ghana and to reassure the public in her own small way that there are still some good nurses in Ghana, despite public opinion. She believes she was able to achieve this aim in her own small way, during her years of nursing practice of close to a decade.
Whiles practicing as a nurse, however, Lawrencia felt a strong urge to do much more than she was already doing: to impact more lives than she could ever do as a Clinical Bedside Nurse. She then decided to put herself in a position whereby she could train many health workers with top-notch Clinical and Administrative skills so that they could deliver excellent healthcare and eventually make Ghana’s health system a formidable one. Due to this dream, Lawrencia decided to move into Academia after having acquired enough hands-on skills at the Clinical level.
As a result, she took a Postgraduate Diploma in Education from the University of Education, Winneba, and a Master of Philosophy Degree in Health Services Management from the University of Ghana Business School respectively. Pursuing these courses positioned Lawrencia as a Professional Teacher and Health Services Manager, coupled with her impeccable clinical skills, and these made her fit to pursue her passion of becoming a trainer of health workers, who will, in turn, be given the capacity to provide quality healthcare to patients from all walks of life.
Miss Lawrencia Aggrey-Bluwey began her journey as an academic within the formal classroom setting as a Lecturer at the Wisconsin International University College in Haatso, Accra, where she taught Health Management courses at the School of Nursing, handling both Nursing and Midwifery students.
She is currently an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Education, Winneba, where she teaches Health Administrators and Educators in Training and has additional skills in classroom and curriculum management, teaching, supervision, data collection, and data analysis. Â She is an Academic and Researcher with interests in Health Policy (Conventional and Alternative Healthcare), Healthcare Governance, Nursing Advocacy, Sexual and Reproductive Health, and Health Education.
She is also pursuing a Ph.D. program leading to the award of Doctor of Philosophy in Health Policy and Management, from the University of Ghana Business School. Miss Bluwey is particularly passionate about Health Policy as her specialty because Health Policy, for both Conventional and Alternative Medicine, is the discipline that sets the foundation for providing the best level of healthcare. It is the pillar that gives us the capacity to plan and make solid decisions that are of major importance in protecting the collective welfare of the entire population in our Health System. She has observed with keen interest that in our part of the world, there are numerous inconsistencies especially with the implementation stages of our health policies, thus, her passion to delve into the policy circles and make a significant impact
She is currently on a path of influencing Health Policy and training up and coming Healthcare Professionals because she believes the only way to build a formidable Health System is to fully equip the incoming generation of Healthcare Professionals with the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitude to function effectively both within and without the clinical setting.
