Nursing in the university, though rigorous, grooms graduate nurses to become independent and aims to provide research oriented nurses who are capable of using intellectual prowess and critical thinking to diagnose patients’ conditions accurately, provide necessary management and assist clients to achieve optimal health.

The Bachelor of Nursing Science (BNSc) Program prepares graduates to take leadership positions and roles in every arm of health care deliveries and agencies. It also aims to produce graduate nurses who use evidence- based practice with a more detailed theoretical background and a concentrated clinical skills and prowess for the optimal outcome of patients’ wellbeing and that of the communities at large.

However, all these are mirage and are liken to castles built in the sky, If these set of graduate nurses are enrolled into the national youth service without allowing them to participate in the one year mandatory internship program as stipulated by National Universities Commission (NUC) for decades.

The proposed Internship is a one year mandatory clinical and hospital based program designed for fresh graduates of health professions like pharmacy, med lab science, radiography, nutrition, medicine, Occupational Therapy, dentistry and physiotherapy to undergo before enrolling them into the national youth service. Hence, these aforementioned disciplines go for a year internship in any government approved hospitals except our noble profession NURSING. Nothing on earth justifies the exclusion of graduate nurses from this mandatory one year internship program?

It is malignant and disastrous to allow these set of graduate nurses into the national youth service without the one year internship program, because majority of these fresh professionals would have remained hibernated for at least 14 months post graduation, before the youth service mobilization comes their ways.

During this space of 14 months staying at home awaiting call up letter to serve their fatherland as mandated by the law of the land as a requirement for employment in both government and private parastatals, these set of polyvalent graduate nurses become cold and malnourished clinically and because of lack of involvement in clinical apprenticeship, they are rendered clinically sedated and tyro. The result is a clinically deficient graduate nurse who could only perfectly quote theories and textbooks without actually appreciating the real practice of nursing in all ramifications.
These are the set of people the government, ministry of health and Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria(NMCN) are comfortably allowed to proceed into the national youth service without undergoing the 12 months internship program that will make them a full fledged nurse practitioner, unlike their counterparts in other health related professions who might have undergone a full 12 months internship program in approved hospitals before the national youth service.
It is laughable and taunting to expect these graduate nurses to perform at par with their counterparts in the health sector who underwent internship program or as expected by their employers in their various primary places of assignment during the youth service. Without this one year internship program, graduate nurses posted to communities during the youth service may become endangered species to the host communities rather than becoming nurse clinicians who should salvage the lives of vulnerable and sick individuals in the communities. This is as a result of the deaf ears turned to the crying and yawning of nursing students, lecturers, and nurses by policy makers and some set of individuals who perceive internship for fresh graduates of BNSc as a threat to them, or in one way or the other have been benefiting from the unveiled hatred and ill harsh meted on the graduate nurses.

These set of individuals clog the wheels of progress of the nursing profession thereby making the profession burdensome and backward with little motivation for these fresh graduates who spent close to six years studying nursing and midwifery. The Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN), National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) and the government know that it is disdaining, unethical and unprofessional to allow graduates of this profession into the national youth service without having them to go through the mandatory one year internship program that will help them make a smooth transition from a theory based practice to a more clinical platform, enable graduates to appreciate the glance of clinical practice and also make them proficient, confident and skillful in nursing practice and marketability by their employers.
It is therefore imperative that the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) challenge this unwholesome affront meted on nursing profession. We condemn this unequivocally and refuse to be half baked anymore. NANNM should rise against all present anomaly and doldrums that make it such that even the closest professionals to the patients are sidelined from an internship capable of transforming them into full fledged professionals.
BY OLOYE ABIOLA OLUWAFEMI Rn,BNSc. (Ife)
08068063250


http://www.nursingworldnigeria.com/2016/01/internship-a-vital-requirement-for-graduates-of-bachelor-of-nursing-science-bnsc-programme

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