Category: News

REGISTRAR, Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN), Dr Farouk Umar, Abubakar says that nurses and midwives form the highest proportion of Nigeria’s healthcare professionals, thus the council’s resolve to fulfill its statutory mandate of ensuring quality nursing services and education.

Dr Abubakar made the remarks at the inauguration of the council’s new zonal office in Ibadan, saying the council’s zonal office was to ensure that the council could complement the availability of nursing services and education in the different parts of the country.

According to Dr Abubakar, the new NMCN’s zonal office is to serve Oyo, Osun and Kwara states but was established in Oyo State because the state houses the highest number of nurses in south-western Nigeria and it is critical to nursing manpower development.

He added: “Nursing has had a base in Oyo State. If you are looking for excellence in nursing education and practice, it is in Oyo State.

Therefore, we must site a zonal office here in order to complement the availability of nursing services in this part of the country.

“Today, the council now has 16 zonal offices in the country to bring services closer to the people. Our statutory services have gone digital and people can access all our services within 24 hours and get whatever they want within 24 hours.”

Oyo State Commissioner for Health, Dr Taiwo Ladipo, noted that the zonal office would ease transactions with the council on nursing education, registration and other activities.

He stated that the state’s College of Nursing is being expanded to include the community midwifery scheme to impact public health, especially at the primary health care level.

Earlier, the executive secretary, Oyo State Health Insurance Agency, Dr Sola Akande, said nurses were major stakeholders in the delivery of health care services and attainment of universal health coverage, and assured of the agency’s continuous collaboration with the council in the attainment of its mandates across the country.

Source: Tribune Newspaper

Yaba Chief Magistrates’ Court in Lagos State, on Thursday, remanded a 39-year-old nurse, Lawrence Omatule, for allegedly performing illegal surgery on a woman, which led to her death.

PUNCH Metro had reported that Omatule performed surgery on a fibroid patient, Fatimoh Isa, at the Feloban Alpha Convalescent Home, Mafoluku, Oshodi, Lagos State.

The victim died shortly afterwards, leading to the arrest of the suspect.

The News Agency of Nigeria reported that Omatule was arraigned on two counts of conspiracy to commit murder and murder.

The court did not take his plea, as the Chief Magistrate, Mrs Adeola Adedayo, said she needed advice from the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecutions

She ordered that the defendant be kept in the Ikoyi Custodial Centre pending the DPP’s advice.

Earlier, the police prosecutor, ASP Rita Momah, told the court that the defendant committed the offences on April 1.

According to the prosecutor, the defendant has accomplices but they are yet to be found.

The alleged offences contravene sections  221 and 223 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.

Source: Punch Newspaper

NAIROBI, Kenya — At a school in the Turbi area in northern Kenya, children clear out by midday, and in come the parents, who are learning to read.

Nearly 80% of the region’s population is illiterate, but Turbi Pioneer School is bringing about change, with children transitioning from one class to another. The parents are working hard: learning to write their names, do simple arithmetic or even save numbers on mobile phones.

This is the work of Anna Qabale Duba, 31, a Catholic mother of two and a professional nurse who won the inaugural Aster Guardians Global Nursing Award May 12.

Duba, who works at the government referral hospital in the northern Kenyan town of Marsabit, received the $250,000 award at an event in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on International Nurses Day

“I have dedicated this award to peace in my region,” Duba, a Catholic, told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview May 16. “Catholics are for humanity and peace. That has also influenced what I do.”

Duba believes she was awarded for her work in education in the remote region. She has been going the extra mile to provide education in a predominantly nomadic herder community where literacy levels are very low.

“My focus is education. I am who I am and where I am today because I got an education,” said Duba, who hopes to increase the work against illiteracy with the prize money.

Turbi, a region near the Kenyan–Ethiopian border, has been the scene of deadly battles involving ethnic communities feuding over resources in Marsabit County. One such incident occurred July 12, 2005, when at least 60 people — including 12 children — were slaughtered in a morning ethnic raid that became known as the Turbi Massacre. Many years later, ethnic tensions still continue to threaten peace in the area.

Duba lost many family members, which inspired her to study nursing.

“Many lives would have been saved if there were health facilities. I lost many family members. That inspired me to want to help my people,” said Duba.

She also has campaigned against harmful cultural practices such as female genital mutilation, or circumcision, and early girl-child marriages in the community. Nearly all girls in Turbi have undergone circumcision by the age of 12, and Duba said she went through it.

“Being a nurse and having seen what these women go through when giving birth, I decided to champion against it,” said Duba, explaining that the foundation involves everyone, with priests and sheikhs speaking against the harmful practices.

“The early marriages are still there, but I am telling them (community) to take their girls to school, because school delays these marriages,” added Duba, the first woman in her village to attain a university degree.

Her passion for working with the communities started in 2013 when she was named Miss Tourism Marsabit County. The work further accelerated in 2014 when she was crowned Miss Investment Kenya. After this, she decided to go back to the village to empower her communities.

So that she could have something sustainable, Duba started a school and named it Turbi Pioneer, since she had been a first in so many things in her village.

Duba also runs the Qabale Duba Foundation, which champions the rights of Kenyan women and girls.

The foundation’s programs include providing sanitary supplies and undergarments; offering mentorship programs, including having motivational speakers visit schools; and programs on safe motherhood, where the foundation trains traditional birth attendants on safe deliveries and urges them to advocate for hospital deliveries. It also fights against female genital mutilation and early marriages and carries out peace initiatives.

Father Christian Pista, a priest at Turbi Mission in Marsabit Diocese, called the award “a moment of joy.”

“We want to see her continue with the work, to fight for the human rights, to fight for the girls and for the women,” said the priest. “The church has invested a lot in education, invested in health and so many social aspects of the human. So the work of so many old missionaries is now visible.”

Bishop Peter Kihara Kariuki of Marsabit said the church and partners working for peace were inviting Duba to become the voice that calls the people to unity, peace and reconciliation in Marsabit County.

“This shows that whatever is the situation in Marsabit, we still have winners,” said Kariuki. “God is bringing these blessings in Marsabit, when we are in this situation (drought and conflict). Then, we need to look at this and say that God wants us to do something better.”

He said the church wants to work with Duba for peace and reconciliation so that “all of us can team up, not those religious, but those who have been touched by God’s love and grace in order to help those who are not able to do.”

Source: Award-winning nurse says Catholic faith influenced her work in Kenya | Crux (cruxnow.com)

The Coalition of Registered Unemployed Nurses and Midwives Association say they are highly disappointed that after almost two weeks of petitioning the Ministry of Health, their concerns have not been addressed.

The group, on May 17, hit the streets to protest the government’s failure to give clearance to some of its members who completed school in 2019.

They also accused the Ministry of using a ‘backdoor approach’ in posting persons who completed school recently, leaving those who completed years ago.

In an interview with Citi News, one of the leaders of the Coalition of Registered Unemployed Nurses and Midwives Association, Charles Apandago, said the demonstration did not achieve its purpose.

“In fact, since we presented the petition to the Ministry, nothing much has been done. Yesterday, [Thursday] we made a follow-up to the Ministry and according to them, a committee has been set to look into the issue, and from what they are telling us, they do not have money now.”

“They only gave us the clearance because we wanted it, but for now, they don’t have money in their coffers, so they said we should give them more time. We are disappointed because things are not easy. We thought the demonstration could have done something for us, but it didn’t,” he added.

Meanwhile, the group has given a two-week ultimatum to the Ministry to meet thier demands.

“Right now, we are giving them two weeks and if they don’t do anything for us to be posted, then a huge demonstration will be held, and it won’t be a peaceful one,” Mr. Apandago said.

The group says the Ministry of Health and Finance granted financial clearance to the 2019 batch in October 2020, but excluded the referral nurses.

In October 2019, members of the association picketed at the Ministry of Health to demand immediate employment.

The group said the action was taken because the ministry failed to give them any positive response regarding financial clearance for their employment.

—citinewsroom

Precisely on 12th May 2022, Nigeria joined the rest of the world to mark the International Nurses Day themed: “Nurses: A Voice to Lead–Invest in Nursing and Respect Rights to Secure Global Health”.

The Day is set aside to celebrate nurses and midwives all over the world as well as highlight the important works they do to save lives and keep their communities safe.

Sadly, this year, the World Health Organisation, WHO raised the alarm over the acute shortage of nurses in Africa saying nine million nurses and midwives are needed globally to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs.

In a message, the WHO Regional Director, Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti said  Nigeria has the highest share of the headcount of nurses at 21 per cent, followed by South Africa with about 18 per cent. She warned that if left unaddressed, the severe shortage of nurses may pose a significant thret to progress toward Universal Health Coverage. 

Good Health Weekly spoke to the Chairman Association of General Private Nursing Practitioners, AGPNP, Mr Clement Olaifa, who stated that Nigerian nurses are leaving in droves as no attention is being paid to the profession amid poor remuneration.

Excerpts:

State of nursing practice

Nigerian nurses have been operating within the available resources and in a very hostile environment but nursing practice in Nigeria is not yet at the level it is expected to be.  We have been trying our best to provide adequate quality healthcare services to the patients in Nigeria.

Nurses in Nigeria are the most populated in the health sector. We are trained to provide services regarding primary healthcare services and within this context, we’ve been trying our best. We have been also at the secondary level. 

But the basic truth about all these is that the negative aspects of the existence of nursing in Nigeria go beyond the positive aspect.  If you want to look at the private sector, nurses are allowed to operate in nursing homes and maternity homes but they have not been able to explore the total scope of their training.

In order to provide quality healthcare for the masses in Nigeria.

Deprivation in practice

There is still some deprivation in lots of areas, having said that we have also been allowed by the Lagos state ministry of health to do the little we can within the scope of our training but in Nigeria as a whole most of the time, in the public sector, the remuneration is still very poor.

Nursing is one of the most well-paid professionals in the health sector in the western world. However, it is still nothing to write home about in Nigeria. You can see a lot of brain drain now in Nigeria, job acquisition is on the high side.

Nigerian nurses are no more training to serve the people of the country because remuneration compared to what is supposed to be is very low.   It is very low.   Nurses were being given N5000 allowance for hazard allowance.

Unfortunately, when COVID came, a lot of nurses died.  A lot of infectious diseases have been attacking us and people have been dying because of services they provide for the clients because most of the infectious diseases come to Nigeria like Ebola the other time, and Nurses were part of the victims. 

The unfortunate thing is that the government has never done anything categorically to remember these nurses.  Though our sisters in the medical profession sometimes will be shouting and they will answer them.   If you want to weigh it, you will see that the attention to the nursing profession in Nigeria is not very good.  

Like I told you, in terms of remuneration, it is poor, in terms of protection, it is poor. A lot of nurses have been kidnapped in the northern part of the country.  Nothing has been done.  It was friends and professionals colleagues who were contributing money to pay for their ransom and the government is not doing anything about them. These are some of the challenges the nurses are facing.

Mass exodus

Nurses are now leaving in their droves. It is sad that Nigeria is training nurses for other countries.  If you see nurses who are training in Nigeria presently, 80 to 90 per cent of them will tell you they are not training to serve the country and Nigeria’s maternal and mortality rate will still be on the high side.  If you ask any nurse currently in training now, they’ll tell you they are training to work outside the country. 

And the maternal mortality rate still continues to be on the high side of the country. The issue at hand now is the number of nurses to manage patients at the bedside is still not adequate. The number of nurses to manage a patient is still very poor and inadequate. You can see a nurse managing almost 20 patients in a hospital in Nigeria.  It is expected that at least 1 to 6 patients.

“By WHO recommendation, it should be between 6 and 8 if I am not mistaken. Sometimes in Nigeria, a nurse will be handling multiple duties even the ones outside the scope of training.   In some hospitals, you will see 1 to about 30 patients and you will now say a nurse is hostile?  Sometimes they act as security personnel and persons to direct and admin person.   In the western regions, all these are analysed. 

Nigerian nurses are not allowed to practice in accordance with their training curriculum; they are still not allowed to practice to their very best and the quacks have overthrown all the communities, nurses are not available, and everybody has travelled.

I gathered some young nurses and trained them in 2019 at LUTH in Lagos here, and now I don’t think up to 80-70 per cent of those people are still in Nigeria.   I met one of them; she told me that 70 per cent of them have left.  Nigeria is now training nurses for other countries.

Way  forward

He said: “We need a better remuneration than what we have now.  Outside allowances that you pay them, you must remunerate them. Nurses in the private sector need to bring more into the capacity for better provision of healthcare services to our people.

In Ethiopia, in Namibia, 2009 they saw that the rate of maternal mortality was about 500 per 100,000 deliveries, they were able to cut it by 50 per cent.

In Nigeria, it is still around 510 per 100,000 deliveries.

“We have been maintaining that for years and have not improved. In Ethiopia they look at the nurses and the Ethiopian government said in 2009; that there are not enough doctors in their country.

They gathered some nurses because they have the basic knowledge about the structure and the functions of the body they gathered them, retrained them and rebuilt their capacity and they were made to be performing Caesarean sections, CS. And at the end of the training between 2009 and 2015, they were made to be doing uncomplicated direct caesarian sections because they found out that the people in those countries are not having access to quality medical care.

And in the case of delivery, a lot of mothers have died as a result of little complications that could have been managed through surgical intervention. By 2015, they declared that their maternal mortality rate has reduced by 50 per cent. Nigeria has been battling with a high mortality rate for close to two decades.

Source: In Nigeria, nurses are not given due attention — Clement Olaifa – Vanguard News (vanguardngr.com)

Fully-vaccinated Filipinos and foreigners who will enter the Philippines beginning May 30 are no longer required to present a negative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test upon arrival in the Philippines.

In an online press briefing, acting Deputy Presidential Spokesperson and Communications Undersecretary Michel Kristian Ablan said the new protocol was contained in the resolution approved by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) on Thursday.

Under IATF-EID Resolution 168, inbound passengers need not present an RT-PCR test, on conditions that they are 18 years old and above, and have at least one booster shot against the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).

Also exempted from the pre-departure RT-PCR requirement are those aged 12 to 17 who have received two Covid-19 vaccine shots, as well as those aged below 12 who are accompanied by fully vaccinated or boosted parents or guardians.

Read also: How To Apply for Philippine Visa for NCLEX Exam https://typesofnursing.com/how-to-apply-for-philippines-visa-for-nclex-exam/

Travel insurance requirement lifted

The IATF-EID, according to its latest resolution, has also lifted the travel insurance requirement for incoming passengers.

The updated Covid-19 protocols included under IATF-EID Resolution 168 allows travelers to enter the Philippines sans the need to secure travel insurance.

Originally, they can only enter the country, if they obtain travel insurance for Covid-19 treatment costs from reputable insurance providers, with a minimum coverage of USD35,000 for the duration of their stay in the country.

Fully-vaccinated travelers, according to the new IATF-EID resolution, are still mandated to present acceptable proof of vaccination and passports valid for a period of at least six months at the time of their arrival.

For temporary visitors, they must have valid tickets for their return journey to the port of origin or next port of destination not later than 30 days from date of arrival.

The acceptable proofs of Covid-19 vaccination include the World Health Organization International Certificate of Vaccination and Prophylaxis, VaxCertPH, national or state digital certificate of foreign country accepting VaxCertPH, and other proof of vaccination permitted by the IATF-EID.

Unvaccinated passengers

Travelers who are unvaccinated or partially unvaccinated or have unverified vaccination status must present a negative RT-PCR test taken within 48 hours or a negative laboratory-based rapid antigen negative test result administered and certified by a healthcare professional taken within 24 hours prior to the date and time of departure from the country of origin or first port of embarkation in a continuous travel to the Philippines.

They are also required to undergo facility-based quarantine until the release of their negative RT-PCR test taken on the fifth day from the date of their arrival in the Philippines. They must also undergo home quarantine until their 14th day in the country.

The relaxed protocol likewise applies to Filipinos traveling to the Philippines, the Department of Tourism (DOT) said Friday.

“We are glad that the propositions we have worked on have been approved by the IATF-EID and are now up for implementation. As we make it more convenient for tourists to visit the country, the public’s health and safety will remain the DOT’s priority,” Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said.

“The DOT sees this development as a win for the local tourism industry as welcoming more tourists in the country will yield more revenues for our MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and restore more jobs and livelihoods in the sector,” she added.

Although travel insurance is no longer required, it is still highly encouraged for arriving passengers, the DOT added. All types of vaccination certificates, regardless of country of origin, will also be accepted.

Based on the latest DOT data, a total of 517,516 foreigners visited the Philippines from February 10 to May 25, 2022.

A bulk of foreign tourists, totaling 104,589 came from the United States, followed by South Korea with 28,474, and Canada with 24,337.

Australian, British/English, and Japanese tourists came next on the list with 23,286; 20,846; and 13,373 respectively.

Other foreign visitors to the Philippines during the early months of the year included Vietnamese, Singaporeans, Malaysians, Italians, Irish and French.

Romulo-Puyat said the DOT looks forward to an uptick in tourist arrivals in the coming weeks following the further easing of entry requirements into the country. (PNA) 

More than 27,000 nurses and midwives quit the NHS last year, with many blaming job pressures, the Covid pandemic and poor patient care for their decision.

The rise in staff leaving their posts across the UK – the first in four years – has prompted concern that frontline workers are under too much strain, especially with the NHS-wide shortage of nurses.

New figures show the NHS is also becoming more reliant on nurses and midwives trained overseas as domestic recruitment remains stubbornly low.

In a report on Wednesday, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) discloses that the numbers in both professions across the UK has risen to its highest level – 758,303.

However, while 48,436 nurses and midwives joined its register, 27,133 stopped working last year – 25,219 nurses, 1,474 midwives and 304 who performed both roles. That was higher than the 23,934 who did so during 2020 after Covid struck, and 25,488 who left in 2019.

“With more than 500 nurses and midwives leaving every week, there’s no room for government complacency [about NHS staffing],” said Sara Gorton, the head of health at the union Unison.

Andrea Sutcliffe, the NMC’s chief executive, said that while the record number of nurses and midwives was good news, “a closer look at our data reveals some worrying signs”. She cited the large number of leavers and the fact that “those who left shared troubling stories about the pressure they’ve had to bear during the pandemic”.

The NMC asked 6,458 of those who quit last year for the three main reasons they had done so. Too much pressure (18.3%), negative workplace culture (13%), Covid (11.8%) and disillusion with the quality of care that patients receive (8.1%) emerged as key factors, although retirement (42.9%) and a change in personal circumstances (21.7%) were the two commonest reasons. “Too much pressure” was defined as staff feeling stressed and having poor mental health.

The NHS in England has almost 40,000 nursing posts and more than 8,000 posts for doctors unfilled. The supply of homegrown nurses has increased only slightly despite the government reinstating financial support worth up to £8,000 a year for trainee nurses.

Of the 48,436 staff who joined the NMC register, just under half – 23,408 (48%) – were from abroad, of whom 66% were trained in India or the Philippines. That is a huge increase on the 2,719 who came in 2017-18. James Buchan, a senior visiting fellow at the Health Foundation thinktank, said: “International recruitment is very much a short-term, quick-fix solution that may come at the expense of long-term workforce planning and domestic supply.”

Pat Cullen, the chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, raised concerns about the NHS taking nurses from low-income countries. “The UK’s health and care workforce is proudly diverse, but it [recruitment] must be done ethically,” she said.

Read full details from the original source Numbers of nurses and midwives leaving NHS highest for four years | Nursing | The Guardian

Despite huge taxpayers’ money spent yearly on 285 schools of nursing and midwifery across Nigeria, the country has failed to keep the nurses it needs amid growing competition in the international nursing labour market.

Today, the International Nurses Day is being observed to mark the contributions that nurses make to society, with the theme ‘Nurses: A Voice to Lead – Invest in nursing and respect rights to secure global health’.

Thousands of nurses and midwives who should cater to patients’ needs at proportionate ratio, elevate access to quality care and reduce mortality have continued to leave the country, in their quest for higher pay, improved working environment, visa packages and accommodation.

With a high attrition rate and a lean nursing workforce, Nigerians have to grapple with the reality of one nurse managing 25 to 30 patients on a shift in public health facilities, Blessing Israel, national vice-president of National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, told BusinessDay.

Private hospitals do not have it better as they have equally seen unprecedented migration of their skilled hands in recent years, leaving the country with 15 nurses and midwives per 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization Global Health Workforce statistics database.

Based on recent increases in capacity to train, Nigerian schools of nursing and university departments of nursing sciences should produce over 22,000 skilled people to the market, who can help meet WHO’s recommendation of 83 nurses and midwives per 10,000 people.

According to the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, about 7,000 of these nurses migrate annually to top destinations such as Europe, North America and the Middle East, despite the council’s refusal to upgrade the verification of nurses electronically for ease of migration.

“We can’t stop them. Other countries value us more, and the energy we put into our job and that’s why they are recruiting from Europe, US and the rest. Everybody including the old and young professionals are keying into it because the remuneration is better,” Israel said.

“We are urging the government to create the enabling environment for our people to thrive in our country. Government also needs to employ more hands. There are also a lot of nurses out there looking for jobs.”

Depending on the level, experience and qualifications, the annual salaries of nurses and midwives ranges between £20,330 and £93,735 in England; £21,709 and £103,358 in Scotland; £19,737 and £93,735 in Wales; and £19,337 and £91,004 in Northern Ireland, data obtained from United Kingdom on pay scales in healthcare show.

About 8,241 Nigerian nurses worked in the UK’s National Health Service in 2019. From April to September 2021, more than 10,000 new international nurses were registered in the UK, including 1,300 from Nigeria.

Data from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics of the United States show that the annual wages of registered nurses hover around $59,450 and $ 120,250.

In Canada, registered nurses earn between $26.28 per hour and $48.37 per hour.

Jennifer Oyelade, employability specialist and Europe, Middle East, Africa consultant, told BusinessDay that the migration would continue, especially with the huge gap that the COVID-19 pandemic had created in places such as the UK.

According to her, the current staff of National Health Service are burnt out and overworked, and the authorities are actively creating incentives to woo people to come into the medical field, offering more competitive packages compared to what they are being offered in Nigeria.

“Going forward, there will be an increase. You have people who are working double shifts, 45 to 60 hours a week, in the NHS. There are people who caught COVID and have gone off work and they need replacement. The demand for nurses is high. They are enticed to come through a tier one highly skilled migrant visa,” Oyelade said.

Nurses make up the largest proportion of the health workforce, comprising 90 percent of the contacts between patients and health professionals, according to the International Council of Nursing. They are integral at all levels of the health system, from primary care, population health, specialised services, and policy and management.

Nurses make an essential contribution to all components of primary health care and are frequently the highest level provider, on the frontline, providing primary care services.

Nurses have been essential in expanding the delivery of more advanced services to rural and remote populations, through the informal reallocation of tasks, such as HIV treatment and medical male circumcision.

Olamide Brown, founder of Flying Doctors Healthcare Investment Group, said the government can approach the migration crisis in a way that enables it to sign agreements with top destinations of recruitment and earn the country foreign exchange on each professional that is taken.

“There are ways we can get more money into the healthcare system. One is to outsource medical skills. We have a huge brain drain problem. Why not change that into opportunity by making trade deals with countries that need doctors and taking a fee for it. Countries like Cuba and the Philippines have done this and it’s a source of income for them,” she said.

Source: International Nurses Day: Nigeria can’t keep nurses it needs – (businessday.ng)

The principal of Mampong Nursing and Midwifery Training College by either an act of incompetence or sheer wickedness, has not only inconvenienced about 168 students of the school but cost, or almost cost, them, their career to become of service to their people and nation.

The students of the school by their future career intend to become carers of sick people gone to hospital for treatment as either outpatients or inpatients. They may likely by their profession be able to attend to sick people wherever they happen to be; in homes, public places or hospitals. These are the types of useful people to society that the principal of the college has intentionally or otherwise, been killing their dream.

The principal acting diabolically or cluelessly, has made the lives of the students a complete hell on earth.

She could not stand up tall to defend the very decision of “amnesty” she granted all the alleged failed students who as a result of the deadly infectious Covid-19 pandemic, could not physically attend classes/lessons hence could not do better at their 1st and 2nd semesters examinations.

This decision taken locally in Mampong by her when principals could take their own decisions deemed to be in the best interests of the school, students and the nation, is no longer possible. This is because the government or the national management of the Nursing and Midwifery Training Colleges have centralised the nursing training colleges examinations and assessments in Accra.

Nevertheless, if she were a person that worth her salt, she could have written to inform the Central Management or whatever the board is called, of the decision she took locally, hence they should not use the students’ poor marks for their first and second semesters (Level 100) to add to that of their third and fourth’s (Level 200) to cumulatively determine their Grade Point Average (GPA) pass mark.

In some countries, as cited in my recent publications, the students did not sit for any exams at all, yet the final year students were awarded grades by their class or subject tutors on assessment of their class/lesson performance.

Universities did accept the grades so awarded to the students to admit them into their institutions. Therefore, it would not have been only the principal of the college that took such an unordinary decision.

Every unique problem or occurrence must have their unique solution. This is truly conspicuous when it comes to law where it is said, each case is judged on its own merits. The period of Covid-19 pandemic called for a different approach to promoting students to their next higher classes.

Anyway, for the attention of the affected students, their parents or guardians, I have been alerted to a favourable decision taken by the Health Minister in their behalf. It will bring smiles back on their face.

Should it go as I have been told by a reliable source, the Minister has directed that the principal allows all the students back to school.

The communique to that effect has been passed to the Board of Governors of the college, I have been told. When the principal was contacted about recalling the affected students from their current abodes, be they their homes or privately rented hostels, she is alleged to have said, “the school is now on holiday. I shall see what I can do when school reopens”

If the Minister has really directed as communicated to me from a reliable source, there shouldn’t be any hurdles of ifs or buts to be littered on the path of their re-admission.

The students have not been treated fairly at all. They have been sabotaged. Why do I say this, one may ask? Apart from the numerous discrepancies in their GPA results, surely bordering on incompetence, if not malignity, by the principal, many an affected student that went to the Academic Officer of the college to be issued academic transcript could not get it.

The Academic Officer, Paul Antiarefe, has refused to issue it to them for the past two months. Without the issuance of the academic transcript, those students who had decided to seek admission in other nursing colleges elsewhere in Ghana, could not do it. What a similitude of the Akan proverbial sayings, “Wa bo me abra me su” or “wa tua ma no atua me to”, to wit, “You’ve beaten me but forbidden me to cry” or “You’ve blocked my mouth and my anus”. They mean, you have maliciously blocked all my chances.

I shall be the happiest person to see the affected students recalled to pursue their future nursing and midwifery career.

Again, I shall advise them to live exemplary lives worthy of emulation. They should not be like most of the bad nurses in the nation’s hospitals who have no respect for patients but treat them worse than used rags only good for chucking into the skip.

BE LIKE FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE!

By the way, who was Florence Nightingale? “She is mostly known for making hospitals a cleaner and safer place to be. Florence Nightingale OM RRC DStJ was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organised care for wounded soldiers at Constantinople”.

Rockson Adofo

The Ghana Registered Nurses’ and Midwives’ Association (GRNMA) says it will also push for what it termed as “Emotional Allowance” due to the nature of their jobs.

The Association said nurses and midwives go through various stress and emotional challenges in their line of duties so if some workers are demanding neutrality allowances, they would also be pushing for emotional allowance.

The President of the Association, Mrs. Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo, made the revelations in an exclusive interview with 3FM’s Sunrise hosted by Alfred Ocansey on Thursday.

May 12 every year has been set aside to celebrate nurses globally. This year’s celebration is under the theme: “A Voice to Lead—Invest in Nursing and Respect Rights to Secure Global Health”.

“We could be entitled to emotional allowance considering the kind of things that we go through in our duties”, the President explained.

Mrs. Ofori-Ampofo said, “and the kind of stress that we go through, I think we need such allowance”.

“So maybe at our next negotiation table, we shall table it for consideration”, she added.

—3news.com