Date Posted: 05/Sep/2014 When a child is scared of the dark, it is completely normal, but it is a major calamity when grown men are afraid of the light. A ray of hope has emerged for the nursing profession. We are producing more graduates from our Nursing departments. Finally we can measure up to our colleagues in the health sector. Only a little more push is needed for this profession to achieve its lofty aims. But unfortunately, some grown men who call themselves leaders of the profession are afraid of the light. Disguised as NANNM, they plan to truncate and stifle any iota of hope left for the profession by introducing a unified scheme of service if NANNM is allowed to succeed, this profession is doomed! Let us take a quick look at what this unified scheme of service is all about. A scheme of service is a genre of work and career progression of any worker in the public service of the federation. It generally determines the level at which a worker begins and ends his career. It is not ambiguous, entry and exit is based on qualification. In the civil service, every university graduate enters the workforce at grade level 8, while non graduates with other qualification (including HND) enter at grade level 7. This is the generally acceptable standard. However, the health sector is a little different because of the years of training and exposure. For example, after the National Youth service, the Graduates of Pharmacy, Medical Laboratory Science, etc are placed on Grade Level 10. This is after they had benefited from the practical experience of internship scheme prior to their NYSC where they are placed on Grade level 9. NMCN has similar arrangement or Graduate nurses. NANNMs position with the unified scheme of service is that all nurses, irrespective of qualification should enter and leave the civil service at the same level. It has threatened to go on strike in a few days if its laughable demands are not met. From a certain perspective, it would seem that NANNM is fighting for the unity of nurses, but on a broader scale, without sentiments, this scheme of service is a time bomb. It will explode in our faces in a few years. Such scheme of service is not achievable. The civil service rule already stipulates that a HND holder enters the civil service at grade level 8. If the federal government allows a diploma nurse to enter the civil service at grade level 10, then what becomes of other HND graduates? I guess they will have to fight the federal government too? It is imperative to emphasize that in the civil service of the federation, it is only the University graduates of a Profession that climbs the directorate cadre of that profession. This is notpeculiar to the Nursing Profession but cuts across every other profession. In multi-cadre professions, it is only the University graduates that go beyond grade level 14 into the directorate cadre. Nursing is not the only multi-cadre profession in the health sector. Pharmacy, Medical lab, Optometry to mention but a few are all multi-cadre Professions that have members who are products of the University and those that are products of technical schools. A pharmacist from a school of health is distinguished from a university pharmacy graduate, a lab scientist from school of health is distinguished from a university trained lab scientist. None of the trade union of other health professions that are multi-cadres in the health care system has ever demanded for a Unified Scheme of Service which entails a member without degree in the profession becoming the director of their profession except the shameless NANNM. On what ground is NANNM asking for a unified scheme of service? What benefit will it have for the profession? As far as the health sector is concerned, nurses are bottom of the food chain, this is largely attributed to the fact that a good percentage of the nurses in the civil service are not graduates. If you hold a diploma, you simply do not command the same respect as someone with a bachelors degree. Hence other health workers look down on nurses. With the advent of the bachelor of nursing science degree, nurses are beginning to catch up. More and more nurses with diploma are going back to school to study for their degree, simply because they have seen the need. With a unified scheme of service however, these nurses will no longer see the need to pursue higher education, hence we are back to nightingales era. This will further endanger the profession, reducing it to a mere vocation. Rather than dissipate their energy on this futile exercise they should join hands with GNAN and NMCN to continue to plead and work with the National University Commission (NUC) and the departments of Nursing in various Nigerian Universities to increase admission quotas for the category of Nurses with only the professional qualifications, the RN or the RM, so that those that are interested in pursuing academic upgrade in the University would have an easy opportunity to do so because the generic programmes of Nursing which NANNM is averse to have come to stay in this 21st century. Recently, on the 25th day of August, 2014, Mr Badmus Yusuf the NANNM secretary who also doubles as JOHESU secretary announced that JOHESU had fought and won that the University Graduates of Medical Laboratory science commence their internship programme at CONHESS 08 and enter the civil service at CONHESS 09 post We are therefore compelled to ask about what JOHESU had said or done about the Internship for Graduate Nurses or does it mean that the University Graduates of Nursing who are not included in the internship scheme and who are wrongly placed on CONHESS 07 post- NYSC are not part of JOHESU? Why has Yusuf who is also a Nurse never mentioned anything about Nursing Internship in JOHESU meetings but is very quick to issue strike ultimatum to the FG over unified scheme of service which is not in any way among the top needs of the profession? Why has Yusuf and NANNM never issued any threat of strike over the non-inclusion of Nurses in the internship scheme? Why have they kept mute on issue of parity with the profession of Pharmacy as granted by the IAP award of 1980 and have suddenly found voice to propagate lies of ‘Unified Scheme of Service’ as the problem of the profession when it is not? That NANNM joined hand with JOHESU to win internship and proper placement of the University Graduates of Medical Laboratory Science without any recourse to that of the University Graduates of Nursing is a clear indication that NANNM does not work for the collective interest of the profession but serves the immediate selfish interests of a few elements within their clique who are hell bent on dragging the Profession backward. For NANNM to issue threats of strike at a time when Nigeria is battling an epidemic, is clear indication it lacks planning. The instance nurses go on strike, we ll lose public sympathy, and futher rubbish the already battered image of nigerian nurses. We ll simply end up like NMA. Resuming with our tails in between our legs. Some who reason based on sentiments alone are already celebrating NANNMs mephistophelean pursuits, but I bet you, if NANNM pull through with this, we will look back one day and bite our fingers.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 15:50:21 +0000