The National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to appoint nurses to ministerial, personal, and special assistant positions in his administration.
NANNM which expressed dissatisfaction with Tinubu’s alleged neglect of nurses in ministerial nominations, noted that there was not a single nurse on the list, which did not sit well with them.
Chairman of the NANNM, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Chapter, Deborah Yusuf, made the appeal on Wednesday, while speaking with journalists on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the 2023 annual FCT nurses’ week/scientific workshop with the theme “Our Nurses of the Future,” held in Abuja.
According to Yusuf, nurses were pushed to the margins, and she wondered if there were no nurses to represent the profession in the President’s cabinet.
“We are dissatisfied with the situation, and we have asked President Tinubu to look into it.
“We have so many qualified nurses who can stand the test of time; the government should be fair in whatever it does. The list accommodates all other professionals, but there is no nurse,” she said.
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She furthered that nurses are the foundation of any healthcare system because they provide professional and compassionate care, support, and guidance to patients and their families both inside and outside the hospital.
“Our nurses have been frontline heroes in the fight against pandemics and the Nigerian healthcare system crisis.
“The system remains plagued by the ‘Japa’ syndrome. Nurses are facing push factors such as understaffing of healthcare professionals in hospitals, emotional exhaustion, poor staff welfare, and safety.
“Nonetheless, our dedication and willpower have remained solid. We selflessly face high risks and occupational hazards to safeguard lives and protect communities,” Yusuf added.
Registrar of Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, Faruk Umar Abubakar, in his remarks explained that the migration of nurses could be of merit to the source country regarding foreign remittance.
“The demerits outweigh the benefits, as educational infrastructures of the source countries are leveraged to train nurses who later do not serve in the country that trained and needs them.
“Therefore, it is very imperative that the government adopts appropriate measures through good policy-making and implementation to prevent push factors that result in or trigger the migration of Nigerian nurses to developed countries,” he said.
