His Excellency
General Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR)
The President-Elect
Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Sir,

THIS CHANGE MUST SWEEP THROUGH THE HEALTH SECTOR

Preamble: Nurses and Midwives under the auspices of University Graduates of Nursing Science Association,UGONSA, popularly known as Graduate Nurses Association of Nigeria ,GNAN, heartily congratulates you, the President-Elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, on your hard-won victory. Nigerians massively voted and elected you because we need a new direction, a disciplined and an inclusive government. Your poised and impeccable antecedent endeared you to Nigerians, who believe that no other leader has the capacity better than you to clear the stinking rots in our system. A philosopher once said that –“madness is doing something same way and still expecting a different result”. Your victory is a towering indication that Nigerians want positive deviations (CHANGE) from our usual ways of doing things that shall manifest in better outcome for the generality of the masses.
We equally salute the out-going President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan for the uncommon love he has shown for the Country. His spirited sportsmanship saved Nigeria from turmoil. The concession of defeat, at the time he did it, diffused bounding tension that was palpable all over the land and indeed saved thousands of innocent Nigerians from retiring to their early graves. His action is a confirmation of the sincerity of his maxim –“neither my ambition nor that of any other politician worth the blood of any Nigerian”. He has set an uncommon standard in African politics.
2. His Excellency, we wish to adumbrate that the health sector needs a strong, if not the highest, dose of your CHANGE agenda because corruption, impunity, injustice and acrimony have taken a dangerous dimension in the sector that if nothing is urgently done, the sector may be heading for an irreparable crash.

3. If not for corruption, the budgetary allocation of the health sector, when well managed, can be adequate to provide for free maternal and child healthcare all over the country. Despite the fact that the salaries of health workers are paid by the Government, Some Government owned hospitals charge exorbitantly above what is obtainable in the private Sector. Patients buy virtually every item or drug used in their care. Not even syringes or paracetamol is free. The way drugs and Medical materials that are meant to be free for the patients find their way into the market, in the hands of middlemen, is a paradox your administration must resolve and deal with for the benefit of long-suffering Nigerians that have been exploited by the “Merchants of Public Service” in the health sector.

4. This Association and by extension well-meaning Nigerians are calling on you to visit the Health sector with your anti-corruption broom and sweep out the filth of corruption that is heavily stinking in the sector. The culprits and their conspirators must be uncovered and must not go scot free!

5. We equally demand a free and comprehensive maternal and child healthcare, covering pregnant and lactating mothers and children between 0 to 5 years, and as well free healthcare services for elderly above the age of 65.To halt the continued exploitation of the poor Nigerians by the managements of some Government owned health facilities, it is imperative to fix and make public the Government approved prices for healthcare services and duration of Hospitalization, so that Nigerians shall have informed knowledge of services that are supposed to be free and those that are not and amounts to be paid for those that are not free.

6. Impunity is kicking with atomic momentum in the health sector. The provisions of the civil service rules and the schemes of service are shadow of themselves in the sector. Employment and promotions most times are at the whims and caprices of some professional cabal and done on “man-know-man basis”. Professional affiliation/cabalism in most cases is otherwise what drives the sector and not the civil service rule. Some employees do not reach the peak of their career/profession not because the schemes of service of the federation or the civil service rules forbade such but because the professional cabals have barrier-gated against such. Appointments into leadership positions, committees, boards, agencies, parastatals and so on are always abysmally skewed to the dictates of the Professional Cabals and not the constitution.

7. Acquisition of additional professional qualifications counts for some professionals and reflect in pay rise but amounts to sheer wastage of resources and efforts for others. For example, a registered Nurse/Midwife, RN/RM, who acquires additional qualification say in Paediatric Nursing through self-sponsorship is not given any pat on the back, say, by way of promotion or pay rise unlike some other professionals in the same health sector, whose training are free and footed with tax payers money by the Government, and at same time rewarded with humongous promotion and pay rise. Not even an RN/RM holder getting a degree, B.NSc./B.Sc. Nursing reflects any recognition of efforts put forth to acquire such even as it is glaring that such academic upgrade manifests in better client care and outcome .

8. His Excellency, we implore you to oversee the triumph of rule of law over impunity in the health sector. Absence of rule of law is the chief cause of bicker and acrimony among professionals in the sector. Because the healthcare professionals appointed to oversee the affairs of the sector are driven by professional chauvinism rather team spirit and rule of law, we advice that you appoint patriotic, non-medical and neutral technocrats with proven integrity to superintend over the Ministry of health, its agencies and parastatals. Team spirit shall triumph over bicker and acrimony in the health sector the day undue preferential treatment predicated upon professional affiliation is shunned. Since the healthcare professionals that have superintended over the Ministry of Health for years have failed woefully in making the sector what it should be, we demand for CHANGE. Neutral Professionals who have no medical and health leaning should be handed the mantle. This change must sweep through the health sector!

9. Injustice and inequity, another walking behemoth in the health sector, is responsible for the endless “circle of crisis” and deep-rooted and seemingly intractable acrimony among professionals that ordinarily should work as team mates but sadly now work as opponents in the same pitch. His Excellency, the gutter campaigns and hate speeches going on in our health facilities are worse than the APC-PDP vitriol in the wake of the presidential campaign which you eventually won. Brothers have turned themselves into brazen enemies in the same house because of deliberate injustice and inequity that have thrived over the years. His Excellency, all hope of sanitization and restoration of peace, normalcy and due process is on you. This CHANGE must be witnessed well in the health sector!

10. We believe with those that defined injustice as –‘when equal things are made unequal and unequal things are made equal’. Equals are treated as unequal and unequal are treated as equal in the health sector. Examples abound but, His Excellency, we will restrict ourselves to those facing the Nursing Profession especially the University Graduates of Nursing i.e., the holders of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (B.Sc. Nursing)/Bachelor of Nursing Science (B.N.Sc.), who we believe, are the worst hit by the brazen corrosive arms of impunity, injustice and inequity in the health sector. They have been mercilessly, harshly and deliberately treated as unequal among equals.
11. Despite the provision of the Industrial Arbitration Panel (IAP) Award, 1981, that the profession of Nursing is on parity with that of Pharmacy in Nigeria, as is obtainable in Great Britain, His Excellency, what we see in practice is an aberrant situation where the University Graduates of Nursing are appointed directly on CONHESS 07 post-NYSC (National Youth Service Corps) while their counterparts in Pharmacy are appointed on CONHESS 09 despite both having common entry requirements and course duration for the first degree in the University. Pharmacy interns are even appointed on CONHESS 08 pre-NYSC, a grade higher than CONHESS 07, which University Graduates of Nursing are appointed post-NYSC. Apart from Pharmacy, the University Graduates of other healthcare professions such as Medicine, Optometry, Physiotherapy, and so on enjoy at least CONHESS 09 post-NYSC with the exception of those of the Nursing Profession.
12. Regrettably, His Excellency, till date the rationale for such an anomaly has neither been explained by any Government of the past nor concerted effort made to address it. This is one of the injustices going on in the health sector, which we demand your administration to address.
13. Another injustice of monumental proportion is failure of the past regimes to implement the National University Commission’s(NUC’s) approved internship scheme for the Graduates of Bachelor of Nursing Science as has been done for the Graduates of other Professions in the Health Sector such as Medicine and Surgery, Pharmacy, Optometry, Physiotherapy, Medical Laboratory Science and so on, of whom all have the same entry requirement for the first degree and most have similar course duration in the University. The perennial reference of this all-important subject matter to committees by previous administration is a sign that the will to implement it is grossly lacking.

14. Internship is designed to impact skills needful for qualitative client care. Denying the Members of the Nursing profession, who by their niche and nature of duty in the Hospitals, are the first and last point of patient’s contact and stay with and care for patients round-the-clock, the opportunity to participate in internship training amounts to ‘daylight robbery’ of Nigerians of their right to sound and qualitative healthcare.

15. As tested and trusted doyen of equity, fairness and justice, we strongly thrust the injustice of non-implementation of internship and aberrant under-placement of Nursing degree holders into the free mandate given to you by Nigerians to re-write with your soon-to-be-blowing wind of positive CHANGE.

16. We pledge our unalloyed support and commitment to the success of your regime.

17. Please, kindly accept our highest regards.
Chief (Hon.) S. E. O. EGWUENU
(National President)

Wow,,, that's a whole lot

Mr President sir, here lies the bone of contention reflecting the problems of nurses in Nigeria.
It is an open plea to hasten to our aid. Nursing in Nigeria is in dire need for reshuffling and uplifting, those who acquired higher degrees and certificates for the betterment of our overall health should be recognized and promoted, which will in turn serve as a motivation and encouragement for others who are willing to effect a change in Nigerian healthcare system.

The issue of quackery should be dealt a decisive blow once and for all. There is no excuse to endanger the life of the citizens just because some ignorant folks deemed it necessary to always cut corners and enjoy primitive medical practice.

Lalasticlala

Indeed Nursing in Nigeria is in shambles and needs a strong whirlwind of change to blow over it. From the issue of quackery to the pay of nurses and worse of all the fact that graduate nurses do not go for internship. That's quite outrageous. I have hardly seen a health profession who doesn't do internship in Nigeria before service from the doctors to pharmacists, med lab scientists, physiotherapists, dentists, and all others except graduate Nurses. If there's anyone who needs it the most, I think it's the nurses (talking from experience). Something really needs to be done about this.

Lalasticlala. Pls send this to the front page

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