Declare state of emergency in health sector – NANNM tells Kwara Gov

Ilorin – The National Association of Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), Kwara Chapter has called on Gov. Abdulrazak Abdulrahman to declare a state of emergency in the state’s health sector.

The Chairman of NANNM in Kwara, Mr Joseph Adekanye, said this while delivering an address at the 2019 Nurses Week Celebration and Scientific Workshop, in Ilorin on Tuesday.

The theme of the 2019 Nurses Week is: ‘Nurses, a Voice to Lead Health for All’.

Adekanye described nurses as an engine room around which other health professionals around, urging the government to improve their welfare and that of other staff in the sector.

“Without nurses, there cannot be any sustainable and successful primary health care system; their relevance in primary, secondary and tertiary health institutions cannot be underrated.

“It will be highly suicidal and unpardonable if I fail to acquaint the government of the fact that our members are collapsing at their work places.

“This is because they are over-stressed, overburdened in terms of workload with few hands on ground resulting from diminishing manpower in search of greener pastures, retirements and deaths with no replacement.

“The maternal morbidity and mortality rate could be on the increase in the rural areas if the right and adequate personnel are no more available to handle such specialised care in a yearly three per cent growth population.

“Ten local government councils health facilities have between four to 20 nurses and midwives to fast growing population. The situation at present calls for a declaration of a state of emergency in the state health sector.

“The state government should arise to recognise and accord this noble professionals their rightful positions in terms of their stipends, general welfare and free medical services.

“They are the most endangered personnel in the clinical setting. Nurses and midwives are migrating to greener pastures due to poor remuneration,” he said.

The chairman appreciated the governor for improved workers emoluments and eradication of percentage salaries, describing it is a right step in the right direction.

He, however, said that while state health workers had benefited from the implementation of the 10 per cent Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS), their local government counterparts had yet to have full implementation for 15 months.

Adekanye urged the governor to mandate the directors of personnel management in the councils as well as other relevant stakeholders to implement the 10 per cent CONHESS in their respective domains without further delay.

This, according to him, will avert industrial disharmony and collapse of the health sector.

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Responding, the Head of Service in Kwara, Mrs Modupe Oluwole, who  represented Gov. Abdulrahman, reiterated the government’s commitment to quality healthcare delivery system in the state.

She urged the nurses to return passion to their work, to be able to stand out.

“When you are burning with passion for your profession, you cannot but give all that you have.

“I will take your message back to the governor and I want to assure you that his Excellency will leave no stone unturned; he has promised, and he is doing it; I am sure he will do something about it,” she said.

Dr Khadijah Musah, the keynote speaker at the event, said that health for all was a fundamental human right.

Musah said that health for all required a preventive approach.

She said that nurses, while advocating health for all, should also take care of themselves.

“We need to use an approach that is preventive, so that we can have little curative approach.

“One in 22 women die during pregnancy, childbirth or postpartum causes because professionals are no more working, leaving the health sector to quacks.

“Quackery has been identified as a major challenge in health for all,” she said.

Musah blamed the increase in quackery on doctors and nurses who train them and employ nurses without license in their clinics and maternity centres.

She identified some of the causes of quackery as greed and wanting to become a nurse at all cost after failing council examinations.

Musah urged professional bodies to collaborate in curbing the menace of quackery. (NAN)