Nurses
By Mercy Osajiugo
Minna, June 19, 2018 (NAN) Mrs Ruth Adore, the Chairperson of General Hospital Minna chapter of National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) has decried the dearth of nurses at the hospital.
She made this known in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Minna on Tuesday, stressing that there was an emergency in the area and required urgent attention.
She said many nurses had retired, while many had relocated to join their spouses and some had died.
Adore says the hospital has 19 units that seriously need of nurses.
She added that “this is the most challenging issue rocking nursing services at the General Hospital Minna, when you visit some of the units, you find one nurse attending to 15 to 20 patients.
“The paediatric ward is the worse hit, where you find a nurse attending to about 40 patients.
“We need more hands in the nursing service, we have 19 units and we lack manpower to man these units.”
The chairperson said the shortage of nurses at the hospital had put the few ones on serious pressure as they no longer respect their shift routine.
“This is dangerous for nurses: the health system and the state as a whole. Nurses run three shifts consecutively, this is dangerous for our health and for us to deliver quality health care, we must be emotionally sound.
“Most times we do not observe our off days because of the huge dearth and the number of patients waiting for attention: it is taking a toll on us.”
The state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr Mustapha Jibril, who responded to the issue, said the state since 2015 recruited 500 health care workers.
He said “we hired 500 health care professionals in 2015 and the state currently conducted interview for over 350 health workers at the primary health care level and we will soon hire them.
“When we came in 2015, the first thing we did was to hire 100 nurses, 40 doctors, 10 specialists and 350 other health care professionals.
“For 16 years, nothing was done by the previous government, a gap of so many years cannot be filled in just three year: it will take time before we fill the gap.”
The commissioner noted that Niger was one of the states that paid 100 per cent Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) and Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS) under recession in 2016.
Jibril, however, appealed to the association to bear with the state government, saying “government is
striving to address the issues that caused the recent JOHESU strike.” (NAN)
MNO/HA
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Edited by Hadiza Mohammed-Aliyu