CENTRALIZED POSTING OF INTERNS: UGONSA PETITIONS FG OVER EXCLUSION OF NURSES, OTHERS

The university Graduates of Nursing Science Association (UGONSA) has strongly kicked against the plan by the Federal Government to commence  a centralized posting for only the medical and dental graduates at the expense of graduates of other healthcare disciplines that form part of the healthcare team. In a letter Ref No. UGONSA/017/NAT/PYO/01 dated 29th June, 2017, the association strongly warned the Federal Government not to contemplate centralized posting for the graduates of medicine and dentistry if it cannot extend same to the graduates of other healthcare disciplines. Below is the full text of the letter that was jointly signed by UGONSA National President, Chief (Hon). Solomon E.O. Egwuenu, and the National Secretary, Nur. Goodluck I. Nshi.


His Excellency  Prof. Yemi Osibanjo,
The Ag. President,
 Federal Republic of Nigeria.
State House, Abuja,
Office of the President,
Federal Republic of Nigeria
 
ATTENTION:
Secretary to the Government of the Federation,
The Presidency,
Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation,
Abuja, Nigeria.
Sir,
RE: FG CENTRALIZES MEDICAL AND DENTAL GRADUATES’ HOUSEMANSHIP AND INTERNSHIP POSTING

The University Graduates of Nursing Science Association (UGONSA), the professional association of all nurses with a minimum qualification of first degree in nursing, and all the Nurses under its commune bring you a nightingale's greeting. The association wishes to seize this opportunity to superlatively commend your dogged efforts in keeping the country up and moving at this tempestuous and tumultuous period in our history, when the polity is charged and heated up in the face of absence of our dear President, His Excellency Muhammadu Buhari, occasioned by his protracted ill-health. As we pray for the quick recovery of our President, we equally pray that our good God, who made you our leader at this auspicious moment, shall avail you all the wisdom and strength to turn the fortunes of our dear country for good.

2.    The news item published on the above subject matter by Daily Trust Newspaper on 9th of June, 2017 prompted our humble correspondence in writing. (Please kindly refer to the publication herewith attached as Annexure A).

3.    Notwithstanding how disturbing some of the clauses in the article sounded, we wish to state that it is a noble idea to consider adopting a centralized posting methodology for Housemanship and internship to address the inherent flaws in the current clumsy approach that is akin to, if not more cumbersome than, the bureaucratic process of employment into the Civil Service.

4.    In the current dispensation, interns and house officers are unduly subjected to tortuous and exploitative journeys round the country in search for elusive placement for the mandatory one year internship training without which their full registration and licensure by their respective statutory regulatory bodies is impossible.

5.     This perennial burden of inability to secure a place for internship training or housemanship, as the case maybe, is a general problem that torments the fresh graduates of all the core healthcare disciplines whose full registration and licensure are tied to the internship training.

6.    Be it in Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Medical Laboratory Science, Optometry or Physiotherapy, the story is the same – the wanton difficulty in securing an internship placement stalls smooth graduation of students of all the core healthcare disciplines and unnecessarily increases the length and cost of training, and at the same time robs the country of qualified manpower needed to drive effective care delivery in our health system.

7.    As good as the idea of centralized posting sounded, the declaration that it shall be limited to only fresh Physicians and Dentists – whose registration and licensure are regulated by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), is to say the least, divisive, oppressive and discriminatory. Such posture is an ill wind that will blow nobody any good in our health system but rather is an express call to anarchy, chaos, bad-blood and dangerous bicker that shall not only worsen the already shattered industrial relation in the health sector but equally worsen the existing threat to our national unity and peace. 

8.    His Excellency, we sincerely do not believe that the said Newspaper publication truly reflected the decision of a Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting ably chaired by your humble, impartial and distinguished self. There is no gainsaying emphasizing that equity breeds peace and peace breeds unity and progress because you know better as a revered inner member of the learned profession.

9.    Can this our health system that thrives on injustice, inequity, pathological professional chauvinism, hegemonic oppression and suppression of talents ever develop beyond this clobber of a mess to compete with the health systems of other climes?

10.    Since healthcare delivery is a team effort, what sense does it make to conduct a centralized posting for only the graduates of Medicine and leave the graduates of other core healthcare disciplines that constitute a critical and indispensable part of the healthcare team to wallow in peril?

11.     Because healthcare delivery is a team work and the lives of people are collectively entrusted to the healthcare team, all the members of the team must be given equal opportunity to be adequately trained to be able to perform their duties in the team effectively and efficiently.

12.    As each of the core healthcare professions has a separate statutory regulatory body that handles issues of registration and licensure of its members, all should be concurrently empowered to conduct a centralized posting for their prospective interns. Consequently, the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN), the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) and other statutory regulatory bodies, just like the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), must be empowered concurrently to conduct a centralized posting for their interns in the spirit of equity, fairness and justice.

13.    His Excellency, as a Pastor and a Professor of Law, this association strongly believes that you cannot allow the entrenched characteristic discrimination, injustice, inequity, oppression and wanton marginalization that has eroded the fabric of development in our health system to continue to thrive under your watch. We therefore passionately call on you to urgently nip this cankerworm in the bud lest it escalates to a regrettable and avoidable scenario.


PRAYER
With utmost sense of humility and deep respect, we strongly and passionately submit the following prayers for your kind consideration:

1.    Go ahead with the noble idea of centralized posting of fresh graduates for internship, but empower all the statutory regulatory bodies, in the Federal Ministry of Health, to do so for and on behalf of their respective prospective interns.

2.    Prevail on the concerned authorities to jettison the sinister idea that it is only the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) that shall be empowered to undertake a centralized posting for its graduates, at the expense of other statutory regulatory bodies whose members are core healthcare professionals that form critical and indispensable part of the healthcare team, as such a plan is not only divisive and oppressive but also a direct invitation to anarchy and industrial disharmony.

3.    Empower the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) to commence a centralized internship posting for fresh graduates of Bachelor of Nursing Science (B.N.Sc) degree to enhance qualitative and responsive manpower development in Nursing Science, as nurses remain the central coordinating elements of the healthcare team with highest workload in client care, who  stay with clients round-the-clock, and upon which every other healthcare team members must rely to effectively function.

Please kindly accept the assurances of our esteemed warmest regard as we anticipate and appreciate your favorable response.

Submitted with deepest sense of respect and responsibility!

                                                                     Signed:

Chief (Hon) S.E.O. EGWUENU                                                              Nurse G.I. Nshi     National President                                                                                National Secretary

CC:
Honourable Minister of Health

President of the Senate, Federal Republic of Nigeria

Speaker, House of Representative – Federal Republic of Nigeria

Chief Justice of Nigeria

Registrar, Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria

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UGONSA APPRECIATES GOV. TAMBUWAL OVER NUR. MARYAM ABUBAKAR

In a letter, Ref no. UGONSA/017/AWT/SS/01 dated June 12, 2017, the University Graduates of Nursing Science Association (UGONSA) appreciated the Sokoto State Governor for coming to the rescue of ailing Nur. Maryam Abubakar, who needed a minimum of 4 million naira for live saving surgery following diagnosis of Cancer of left lobe of Liver. The full text of the letter is reproduced below: 

Dear Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal,

The Executive Governor of Sokoto State,

Office of the Executive Governor,

Government House, Sokoto,

Sokoto State, Nigeria.

His Excellency,

RE: NURSE MARYAM ABUBAKAR:  THANK YOU CANNOT TRULY EXPRESS THE DEPTH OF OUR GRATITUDE 

The National Leadership of University Graduates  of Nursing Science Association (UGONSA), the professional association of all nurses with a minimum qualification of first degree in nursing, and all the Nurses under its commune are bereft of words of appreciation for your timely and unquantifiable support and assistance to save the life of our dear sister, Nurse Maryam Abubakar – a staff nurse of the Sokoto State Ministry of Health, who was diagnosed of liver cancer (left lobe) and needed a minimum of 4 million naira to procure  live saving surgery in India. 

2. When the news broke out that chemotherapy only cannot resolve her problem and that she needed extensive surgery that would engulf the whooping sum of 4 million naira, it seemingly sounded like a death sentence.

      

          3. However, the almighty God has chosen to renew her life through your benevolence.

    

    4. Although our association and some kindhearted Nigerians did their best within their limited capacity, the singular intervention of the Sokoto State Government, under your able and altruistic leadership earnestly made a crucial difference. 

          5. Doling out the sum of 4 million naira by the Sokoto State Government to assist her at a time when all was bleak is an indelible gesture we shall forever remain grateful for. 

      6. This gesture has proven to us that the selfless work we nurses do in the care of humanity is highly appreciated. It also stands as a living motivator that shall propel us to do more. 

      7. Overtime, you have proven to be a friend of the nurses. A friend in need is truly a friend indeed. The entire family of nurses is highly indebted to you for your consistent show of concern for our affairs and welfare. 

     

8. Earnestly, our sense of gratitude is so overwhelmed with joy for what you did for our sister that we feel that ‘thank you’ is so inadequate to express the depth of our appreciation, but we will say it anyway! His Excellency, with humility and utmost joy we say THANK YOU! THANK YOU!! and THANK YOU!!!

                                                                      Signed:

Chief (Hon) S.E.O. EGWUENU                                                              Nurse G.I. Nshi

     National President                                                                                National Secretary

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NURSINGWORLD PRESS RELEASE ON FGS EXCLUSIVE CENTRAL PLACEMENT FOR HOUSE OFFICERS ONLY

The recent feat achieved by the Honorable minister of health Prof. Isaac Adewole in stemming the suffering and pains of intending and potential medical interns is indeed laudable.  Before now, medical interns had to suffer treacherous journeys around the country and extortion searching for placement for the mandatory one year internship program. You would recall as published on the Nursingworld website, The Minister had announced that FEC had approved the ministries central placement plan for medical interns.

According to the statement credited to the Minister - "Hope is alive for our new medical graduates and the backlog unable to find placement at institutions - a criteria for their full registration. Prof Adewole further added that MDCN will from 2018 implement central program to place, post and fund available 4,461 horsemanship /internship training spaces across Nigeria

We at Nursingworld Nigeria and Nigerian nurses in general are deeply saddened by the stance taken by the minister to exclusively address this issue for the Medical doctors ONLY leaving out other interns like Nurses, pharmacists, medical laboratory scientist to wallow in agony, extortion and peril searching for placement positions.

This singular act of biased disposition by the federal ministry of health has exposed the favoritism that our professional association NANNM (National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives) has always accused the ministry of. We cannot at this time afford to further polarize the fragile peace in the health sector.

While we applaud the Honourable minister for his role in the actualization of the commencement of one year internship program for graduates of the bachelor of Nursing science, we appeal to him as the Minister of health and not the 'minister of Doctors' to ensure that nursing graduates are mainstreamed into this central posting plan for interns.

We call on the able leadership of NANNM, the Directorate of Nursing at the FMOH and our able Registrar at the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria to engage the ministry in dialogue to remedy this situation. 

We also call on the Minsiter of health to urgently make a volte-face on this exclusive policy and ensure that graduates of nursing sciences and other health care professionals are carried along in this noble plan.

Nurse Jennifer Emelue

For: Nursingworld Nigeria

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UGONSA NATIONAL PRESIDENT SPEECH AT ADDRESS AT 2017 EXPANDED NATIONAL STAKEHOLDERS (ENS) MEETING IN ENUGU

AN ADDRESS BY CHIEF (HON.) NURSE SOLOMON E.O. EGWUENU FNHR, FCAI, THE NATIONAL PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITY GRADUATES OF NURSING SCIENCES ASSOCIATION (UGONSA) ON THE OCCASSIONOF EXPANDED NATIONAL STAKEHOLDERS MEETING HELD AT CABRINI CENTRE, NEAR FEDERAL NEUROPSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL, ENUGU, ENUGU STATE ON SATURDAY JUNE 3^RD, 2017.

 Professional colleagues, I wish to most sincerely welcome all of you to this historical gathering of the present and future torch bearers of Nigerian “DREAM NURSING PROFESSION”. May I at this point appreciate, honour and praise the Almighty God for granting us all journey mercies from our different destinations to Enugu, the coal city, for this epoch making gathering.

I must not fail to appreciate and pay worthy and deserved tributes to you all, the industrious and progressive nurses that have made all our struggles and efforts in liberating the Nigerian Graduates Nurses not only fruitful but worthwhile and efficacious. Even when I was incapacitated by ailment the struggle continued strongly in my absence. I cannot thank you enough! 

When I cast my mind back and reflect through the memory lane from the time few Nurses gladiators stood firm and resuscitated our ailing Graduates Nurses Association of Nigeria (GNAN) through to the official registration of GNAN as UGONSA, and the protracted struggles that preceded our realization of internship training programme for our fresh graduates, we surely have much cause to glorify the Lord for the journey so far.

However, my beloved professional colleagues - there is so much work to do as there are so many intrinsic and extrinsic, intra-professional and inter-professional forces and detractors out to negate our aspirations and impede our growth and development. This gloomy situation notwithstanding, we must appreciate the spiritual and psycho-social fact that one with God is not only a majority but irrepressible. Our mission and cause are just and our struggles and desires are divinely guided.

The main goal of UGONSA is essentially that the Nigerian Graduates of Nursing Sciences must be given their place of pride like their contemporaries in the western world. It is today not only real but a fact that Rear Admiral Sylvia Trent-Adams is the Surgeon General of the United States of America. It is also a fact that this is not the first time a nurse in the United States is occupying such an exalted position. Before her, there has been a Nurse-Physician Surgeon General, Dr Richard Carmona, who preferred his identity as a Nurse. 

Today in Nigeria, there is an unhealthy monopoly and professional oppression in our health system. This situation has promoted mediocrity over meritocracy and has stunted the growth and development of our healthcare services. It has equally incapacitated inter-disciplinary co-operation and mutual knowledge sharing and research for clinical practice and education that leaves our health system in a despicable situation. 

There is no doubt, professional colleagues – that the problems’ facing nursing and the healthcare system in Nigeria is like an Augen stable, which would be difficult to clear. However, when the immediate past President of the United States, Barrack Obama, embarked on the journey of the becoming the President of America, a seemingly impossible post for a “Blackman”, he made the world to appreciate the two words phrase “WE CAN”. We all should draw our strength from this phrase “WE CAN” for I surely know and believe that truly “WE CAN”. It is in the light of this that I draw our attention to the enormous tasks ahead. 

I have earlier emphasized the fact that there is so much to be done to take nursing to its proper place of pride and the Graduates of Nursing Science to the pilot’s seat of not only the health system but the country in general. May I therefore agitate our minds a little bit by raising the following questions:

      a. When shall a graduate of Nursing Science with adequate academic credentials become     
       the provost of a college of Health Sciences? 
    
  b. When shall a graduate of Nursing Science serve this nation as the substantive (Federal) 
     Minister of health? 
   c. When shall a professor of Nursing become the Vice Chancellor of any of the Nigerian  
       universities?

         d. When will the Graduate Nurse be the chairman of a Board or Governing Council of a 

         Federal University Teaching Hospital?

    e. When shall a Graduate Nurse become the Chairman of a State Hospital Management   

        Board?       

     f. When shall a Graduate Nurse head a State or Federal parastatal or MDA? 

         g. How much are the nurses or the graduate nurses involved in policy formulation and 

         implementation in our health system, even on issues that concern us? 

        h. When shall nursing practice, education and administration be freed from the hegemonic grip of Chief Medical Directors?

      i. When shall the deliberate marginalization, and ridiculing of the nurses and nursing  

       profession by the “powers that be” be brought to an end and made actionable and punishable in law?   

         j. When shall “news writers” and “movie producers” stop their ferocious unprovoked 

      onslaught on the public image of nursing, which they have penchant for projecting in bad light? 

      k. When shall the nursing profession be represented by its first eleven, under the umbrella of a worthy, respected and reputable professional association?

The questions seem endless and just but a few of the areas that require prompt, purposeful and effective result- oriented attention were merely highlighted.

I raised these issues to agitate our minds and stimulate critical thinking and reasoning for proactive and conscious actions because I have no fear in my mind that UGONSA has the human resources that would surely make the positive changes and help guide nursing to its place of pride and respectability in Nigeria. Once more, may I appreciate you all for your contributions and tenacity. May I finally say kudos to our able National Secretary, Nurse Nshi Goodluck. He is indeed an indefatigable torch bearer, and a man with medas touch. May God continue to bless you all!

Thank you!! Long live UGONSA!!!

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