Nurses On Strike
In a country, the health sector is one of the most important sectors as it is responsible for the wellbeing of the country. Though in many developing and underdeveloped countries, the conditions of hospitals and clinics is very poor.
Due to the underpayment of medical staffs, the average Nigerian medical practitioner's dream is to look for a job outside the country and relocate because over there, medics are valued and are being payed better when compared to our country.
Many medics go to work because of the zeal and love they have for the profession. Underpayment has led to many things, including the lackadaisical attitudes of health practitioners towards their jobs.
The state of the health sector in my country, Nigeria, really needs to be improved. Most especially when it comes to wages. Also, some hospitals treat health workers poorly, especially their nurses.
The hospital may provide good accommodations for the doctors, lab scientist and even the pharmacist, but when it comes to providing accommodation for the nurses, there will always be one excuse why an accommodation can't be given to a nurse. If there is an accommodation, there it will not be a good one.
In the health sector, there actually needs to be a serious reform in primary health centers. Most PHC centers i've been to are poorly equipped both in manpower and medical equipment.
We lack adequate manpower and in many areas, we need to replace some workers. In some Primary Health Care centers, you will see an old person that is due for retirement (some of which are in the positions they are because they know one or two persons in the government), handling delivery with shaky hands. Inarguably, some of these old people are experienced, but then, old age has caught up with them.
Nursing is a very interesting course. Welcome to the profession where a patient can physically and verbally hit a nurse, and the nurse is expected to remain calm and not retaliate. This does not happen to only the nurses, just that its more common with nurses because we are the closet to the patient.
A few years ago, I was in Federal Medical Center Umuahia for my experience. I was posted to the labor ward where i got first hand experience of child birth. The experience was a nice and i learnt a bunch of things. My time there was not wasted.
One day, a man came with his wife to the labor ward cause' she was in labor. She is a multipara. Upon arrival, history was taken and other processes was carried out. We found out that she was about 6cm dilated.
While waiting for full cervical dilatation, the man was asked to make some payments. He said that we save a life first (which we are already doing, moreover the deliver was going normally, so, no cause for alarm), but the Midwife explained to him the reasons why he needed to pay.
One thing led to another and he began to shout at the Midwife. The midwife was trying to calm the mans anger while explaining the need for the payment, but he refused to listen. Instead, he began to rain insults on her. Welp, the case was settled. His wife delivered.
When the midwife was going back home in the night, the man chased her and he beat her on the road. When we got the news, our chief asked us to go on immediate strike. No Nurse or midwife in the maternity section was permitted to touch any patient. That was how we left the patients, and went on strike for that day.
I don't really know how the matter was settled with The N.S.D, but we continued our work.
In my opinion, I don't see a problem with going on strike. If we don't go on strike, our message will not be passed and there is a high probability that we will not get solutions to our problems.
Thank you for reading.
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