September 09, (THEWILL) – A report claiming that many Nigerian nurses are stranded overseas due to verification challenges at house is as embarrassing as it’s worrisome, if not laughable. In response to the story, many Nigerian nurses residing and dealing in the UK, america of America and Saudi Arabia are unable to conclude the ultimate stage of their qualification, which requires verification, as a result of the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria deactivated its verification portal in February 2024, eight months in the past. The difficulty is to get a pin from the verification portal as a registered nurse in Nigeria. That’s all.
Within the eight months that the portal has been deactivated, lots of the nurses have been unable to resume their licences and “meet the regulatory requirements set by worldwide organisations.” The top end result? “Already, some nurses with out the required verification from the NMCN discover themselves in violation of visa circumstances and employment legal guidelines, leading to authorized penalties,” and most probably deportation.
In the course of the interval that the nurses’ hopes have been hanging by a thread, the President of the Nationwide Affiliation of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, Michael Nnachi, battled with negligible success to have interaction authorities officers to make sure the reopening of the portal however in useless.
This can be a unhappy commentary on institutional disregard for certified professionals who by way of no fault of theirs are made to undergo pointless bureaucratic bottlenecks.
We recall that the NMCN has an unsettled case with the Federal Authorities over calls for to create a separate wage construction for nurses and appoint nurses into federal boards as a method to cut back or checkmate migration. The organisation disclosed not too long ago that 75,000 nurses and midwives have emigrated up to now 5 years.
In a rustic with an estimated 200 million individuals and fewer than 250,000 registered nurses and 150,000 midwives, the exodus of 75,000 well being personnel might be described as alarming, contemplating that the speed of emigration will increase in proportion to the nation’s decaying well being system.
As a pointer to this drain of manpower within the well being sector, the Federal Authorities not too long ago recruited 2,497 well being staff to switch medical doctors and nurses which have left Nigeria. Earlier, retired nurses and medical doctors have been additionally recruited by the federal government to function contract workers.
Ex-President of the Nigeria Medical Affiliation, Dr Uche Ojinmah, not too long ago argued that however the excessive variety of medical practitioners leaving the nation, there have been nonetheless many medical doctors unemployed within the nation.
He disclosed that even if medical doctors are leaving, some are nonetheless not employed whereas the one-for-one coverage whereby medical doctors will begin changing people who go away instantly has been on the drafting board for months with out implementation.
There’s subsequently little doubt that the well being sector is nearly in receivership and requires drastic measures to revive some sanity as coverage initiatives and restoration are being undertaken to handle each manpower and infrastructural challenges.
Even so, denying any type of empowerment to professionals within the sector shouldn’t be inspired as a part of efforts to revive order. We aren’t saying that the NMCM shot down the verification portal intentionally to frustrate nurses overseas. The purpose is that whereas measures are being undertaken at residence to handle the rot within the well being sector, the curiosity of pros ought to be factored into the combination as managers whether or not at residence or overseas. Rehabilitation of the decayed system that compelled them to to migrate may also lure them again to the nation.
We implore the Minister of Well being and Social Welfare, Dr Ali Pate, to intervene and get the NMCM to activate the system. Come to think about it, well being staff everywhere in the world to migrate to ply their providers globally, Nigerians can’t be an exception.
The main focus ought to be on making the well being sector practical and enticing to medical doctors, nurses, midwives and different well being care givers.
